33. she/her. i write fanfics and sometimes make art! mostly harry potter at the moment but branching out between ships. >> click the menu to see all my fics!<<
Title: Borrow the Moonlight
Rating: M
Pairing: George/Claire (OC)
Chapters: 7/17
Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Enemies with Benefits, but for real, George falls in love with a Death Eater, Background Harry/Hermione, Background Ron/Katie, Background Ginny/Lia, George is dealing with some not so happy thoughts, eventual smut, not necessarily HEA though, that's what the sequel is for, random side character death, Auror George, Head Auror Harry, Muggle Relations Hermione
Summary: During one night mission, George runs into a Death Eater who doesn't kill him when she has the chance. In fact, she also seems to be rescuing the kids. He can't stop thinking about her, wondering who she is and what all of it means, but will he be able to convince the Auror department--and most importantly, Harry--that he's not losing his mind? Something's different about this case and about this woman, like he knows there's a piece of the puzzle missing. He just has to find it. As always, starring Florence Pugh as Claire and Saoirse Ronan as Lia.
Updated on Mondays!
Read on AO3 or below!
Chapter 6
"Harry, lock the door."
"What?"
"Lock the door. Right now."
When he turned back to Hermione, there was a look in her eyes that he ever only saw at home, and he didn't hesitate to point his wand at the closed door where he'd nearly slammed it shut behind George, feeling his pulse skyrocket as the sound of the lock clunking into place suddenly became the loudest thing in the room besides Hermione's thoughts. Just for good measure, he silenced it too. She had gotten up from her chair and was making her way towards him. The room wasn't large, so it didn't take her long to cross it and push him against the door, sliding his jacket off his shoulders so that it crumpled down to the floor. Before he could even think about a response, his back was against the door and her hands were fumbling with his belt as she sank to her knees.
It turned out that Hermione's desk wasn't nearly as comfortable for other activities as it was for working, but Hermione assured him the thrill was worth any inevitable bruising to her shoulders or Harry's knees for the amount of times they'd accidentally rammed into the front of it. Of course, everything Hermione had been working on was now all over her office floor, papers scattered and pens rolled to the other side of the room. But it was all worth the shy smile on Hermione's face as she gathered it all back up, face still flushed as Harry finished rearranging his uniform, and tucking his shirt back in.
"So I should yell at George more often, then?" he teased.
"Preferably not George, but I wouldn't say I'm exactly complaining." Hermione set her papers in their pile with a grin. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"
"When? Just now?"
"No," she laughed. "With the mission."
"What mission?"
"Harry."
"Oh." He blushed, willing his brain to come back to the present and not stay stuck in the memories of the last fifteen minutes. "Right. I knew he was going to want to talk to Claire somewhere private. That was in their agreement—they'd meet when we went to the raid, George would be given information, and we'd let them go. At least a few times to keep their trust. But she ran off and he went after her into the woods. There was no indication of where he was going, if he was safe or not—I mean, she could have been leading him into a trap! It was impulsive and stupid and he was gone for way longer than he needed to be just to get information. He only came back after they all Disapparated, made sure everyone was okay, barely spoke to us during the debrief, and then he came barging in here and talking to you like he was. Do you think she did something to him? Like… back in the interrogation room?"
Hermione took a deep breath, letting Harry's words sit with her. That furrow between her eyebrows came back. "I don't know. But it may not be outside of the realm of possibility. There's no surveillance of any sort from inside the room, is there?"
"No. But she didn't have her wand, so unless she was using some type of wandless magic that has long-lasting effects, I can't imagine anything going on this long after an interview. Why, did you find something out?"
Hermione shuffled through her notes until she found something with a copy of a book page attached. "So, like I was telling George, Montague is a fairy common last name with Purebloods, but I think I found a descendant of the Sacred 28 that married into the Montague family, most likely one of the Averys. That in itself would already produce incredibly powerful magical children. There was one source that I need to look into a little more, but it stated that the women in the Montague family—now that's not a recent source, so if it is Claire's family, she and her mother and probably her grandmother aren't going to be in it—but they have a proclivity for memory charms."
"Makes sense why Claire would have been the one to Obliviate the kids, then, if that's the case."
"Right. That's why I'm looking into it. If I can find something to confirm it, I'm sure whatever it is they're looking for is in some record if I go far back enough. I'm still honestly amazed at how extensive the Ministry's library and record-keeping is with all of these families."
"It's got to be with all the rules they love to impose," Harry teased, then looked at his watch. "Alright, as much as I've thoroughly enjoyed my time in your office today, I do have to go back to mine. Are you okay for me to head out?"
"Harry, we're getting married. You don't need to stick around after sex anymore if you've got other things to do. That insecurity has been gone for years."
"I know! I know. I just feel bad."
"You're fine. Just don't stay too late, okay?"
"I won't."
He gave her a soft but sensual kiss before unlocking Hermione's door and heading back to the Auror department. It was in moments like these where he was glad he was Head Auror, because it didn't mean there was anyone waiting to question him. Not that he'd have many answers anyway. He headed back to his office and sat down in his chair, replaying the mission over and over in his head in an attempt to find out something out of the ordinary. George had gotten her location, relayed it to Harry, who'd organized the mission according to that time and location, then they went there to stop the raid. George saw Claire, ran after her, then came back once they were gone. He couldn't even be sure if George had gotten any information from her—maybe he should have asked before sending him home.
Harry wrote everything down anyway, then read it back to himself a couple times before finishing the rest of the paperwork and going through the other Aurors' mission notes to make sure everyone was on the same page. There were no other mentions of George's desertion. Maybe it was Harry that was overreacting. Maybe things would change now that they knew what to expect, but still, something felt off about it. Hermione's comment about the Montague family being good at memory charms was still a solid piece of evidence if there was one. He wouldn't be able to prove anything, though, without George getting suspicious.
"I don't think you should change anything you're doing, Harry. Honestly," Hermione said over dinner, twirling a forkful of spaghetti around before putting it into her mouth and chewing as she thought. "Just because you're letting him take the lead doesn't mean he can act like his only his mission. He's not the one in charge. Maybe he just forgot."
"Even after everything we talked about after the interrogation? I thought we were on the same page."
"Clearly you weren't. I think…" she inhaled, then let it out quickly. "Can I be honest with you? And you won't get mad?"
"That's never a good question."
"I think maybe you're being a little… paranoid." Harry sat up straighter, opening his mouth to speak, but Hermione continued. "It's like Draco all over again. Any time something's a little strange, or even stranger than it should be, you act like it's your problem to solve. I've been saying to keep an eye on things, on George, and I'm not changing my stance on that, but just because this involves a strange interaction with a Death Eater doesn't mean that she's got George under the Imperius Curse or something."
"I don't think she's got him under the Imperius Curse," Harry huffed. "I know it's probably nothing, but it seems like he's been… different since this whole thing started and I can't figure out why he's acting like he suddenly doesn't know how to follow protocol. There's got to be something about her that's…"
"You said she went to Hogwarts, right? Was she in his year? Maybe he knows her."
"He said he didn't."
"Would he lie?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't think so. There would have been no reason to in the beginning. If he was close to her, we would know her… right?"
Hermione's eyes became mischievous as she took a sip of her wine. "Maybe they were secret lovers."
"You might be onto something," he said with a grin. "A Gryffindor with a Slytherin."
"With a last name like Montague, too. That was a Romeo and Juliet reference."
"Ah."
"It would be a shame, though. Wouldn't it? For someone you love to turn out… like that."
Harry rubbed his forehead, his scar. "Yeah, it would." He took a sip of his own wine, then swallowed quickly, the conversation finally fully sinking in. "What if they are, Hermione?"
"What?"
"What if they were together? And he is lying about knowing her. If he's trying to talk to her one-on-one, trying to get her back, that would make sense, wouldn't it? I mean, I'd do the same for you."
"If that's true… George is one hell of an actor."
~~~~~~~~~~
It turned out that Hermione's desk wasn't nearly as comfortable for other activities as it was for working, but Hermione assured him the thrill was worth any inevitable bruising to her shoulders or Harry's knees for the amount of times they'd accidentally rammed into the front of it. Of course, everything Hermione had been working on was now all over her office floor, papers scattered and pens rolled to the other side of the room. But it was all worth the shy smile on Hermione's face as she gathered it all back up, face still flushed as Harry finished rearranging his uniform, and tucking his shirt back in.
"So I should yell at George more often, then?" he teased.
"Preferably not George, but I wouldn't say I'm exactly complaining." Hermione set her papers in their pile with a grin. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"
"When? Just now?"
"No," she laughed. "With the mission."
"What mission?"
"Harry."
"Oh." He blushed, willing his brain to come back to the present and not stay stuck in the memories of the last fifteen minutes. "Right. I knew he was going to want to talk to Claire somewhere private. That was in their agreement—they'd meet when we went to the raid, George would be given information, and we'd let them go. At least a few times to keep their trust. But she ran off and he went after her into the woods. There was no indication of where he was going, if he was safe or not—I mean, she could have been leading him into a trap! It was impulsive and stupid and he was gone for way longer than he needed to be just to get information. He only came back after they all Disapparated, made sure everyone was okay, barely spoke to us during the debrief, and then he came barging in here and talking to you like he was. Do you think she did something to him? Like… back in the interrogation room?"
Hermione took a deep breath, letting Harry's words sit with her. That furrow between her eyebrows came back. "I don't know. But it may not be outside of the realm of possibility. There's no surveillance of any sort from inside the room, is there?"
"No. But she didn't have her wand, so unless she was using some type of wandless magic that has long-lasting effects, I can't imagine anything going on this long after an interview. Why, did you find something out?"
Hermione shuffled through her notes until she found something with a copy of a book page attached. "So, like I was telling George, Montague is a fairy common last name with Purebloods, but I think I found a descendant of the Sacred 28 that married into the Montague family, most likely one of the Averys. That in itself would already produce incredibly powerful magical children. There was one source that I need to look into a little more, but it stated that the women in the Montague family—now that's not a recent source, so if it is Claire's family, she and her mother and probably her grandmother aren't going to be in it—but they have a proclivity for memory charms."
"Makes sense why Claire would have been the one to Obliviate the kids, then, if that's the case."
"Right. That's why I'm looking into it. If I can find something to confirm it, I'm sure whatever it is they're looking for is in some record if I go far back enough. I'm still honestly amazed at how extensive the Ministry's library and record-keeping is with all of these families."
"It's got to be with all the rules they love to impose," Harry teased, then looked at his watch. "Alright, as much as I've thoroughly enjoyed my time in your office today, I do have to go back to mine. Are you okay for me to head out?"
"Harry, we're getting married. You don't need to stick around after sex anymore if you've got other things to do. That insecurity has been gone for years."
"I know! I know. I just feel bad."
"You're fine. Just don't stay too late, okay?"
"I won't."
He gave her a soft but sensual kiss before unlocking Hermione's door and heading back to the Auror department. It was in moments like these where he was glad he was Head Auror, because it didn't mean there was anyone waiting to question him. Not that he'd have many answers anyway. He headed back to his office and sat down in his chair, replaying the mission over and over in his head in an attempt to find out something out of the ordinary. George had gotten her location, relayed it to Harry, who'd organized the mission according to that time and location, then they went there to stop the raid. George saw Claire, ran after her, then came back once they were gone. He couldn't even be sure if George had gotten any information from her—maybe he should have asked before sending him home.
Harry wrote everything down anyway, then read it back to himself a couple times before finishing the rest of the paperwork and going through the other Aurors' mission notes to make sure everyone was on the same page. There were no other mentions of George's desertion. Maybe it was Harry that was overreacting. Maybe things would change now that they knew what to expect, but still, something felt off about it. Hermione's comment about the Montague family being good at memory charms was still a solid piece of evidence if there was one. He wouldn't be able to prove anything, though, without George getting suspicious.
"I don't think you should change anything you're doing, Harry. Honestly," Hermione said over dinner, twirling a forkful of spaghetti around before putting it into her mouth and chewing as she thought. "Just because you're letting him take the lead doesn't mean he can act like his only his mission. He's not the one in charge. Maybe he just forgot."
"Even after everything we talked about after the interrogation? I thought we were on the same page."
"Clearly you weren't. I think…" she inhaled, then let it out quickly. "Can I be honest with you? And you won't get mad?"
"That's never a good question."
"I think maybe you're being a little… paranoid." Harry sat up straighter, opening his mouth to speak, but Hermione continued. "It's like Draco all over again. Any time something's a little strange, or even stranger than it should be, you act like it's your problem to solve. I've been saying to keep an eye on things, on George, and I'm not changing my stance on that, but just because this involves a strange interaction with a Death Eater doesn't mean that she's got George under the Imperius Curse or something."
"I don't think she's got him under the Imperius Curse," Harry huffed. "I know it's probably nothing, but it seems like he's been… different since this whole thing started and I can't figure out why he's acting like he suddenly doesn't know how to follow protocol. There's got to be something about her that's…"
"You said she went to Hogwarts, right? Was she in his year? Maybe he knows her."
"He said he didn't."
"Would he lie?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't think so. There would have been no reason to in the beginning. If he was close to her, we would know her… right?"
Hermione's eyes became mischievous as she took a sip of her wine. "Maybe they were secret lovers."
"You might be onto something," he said with a grin. "A Gryffindor with a Slytherin."
"With a last name like Montague, too. That was a Romeo and Juliet reference."
"Ah."
"It would be a shame, though. Wouldn't it? For someone you love to turn out… like that."
Harry rubbed his forehead, his scar. "Yeah, it would." He took a sip of his own wine, then swallowed quickly, the conversation finally fully sinking in. "What if they are, Hermione?"
"What?"
"What if they were together? And he is lying about knowing her. If he's trying to talk to her one-on-one, trying to get her back, that would make sense, wouldn't it? I mean, I'd do the same for you."
"If that's true… George is one hell of an actor."
The only reason George didn't slam the door to his flat was so not to disturb Ron and any patrons below. It came in handy sometimes, keeping him in check. How dare Harry thing he was abandoning them! He was doing his job. Getting information like he'd promised to do. Admittedly, he could have been less rude to Hermione, but he could have been worse. He poured himself some whiskey, downed the shot, then took off his watch. He wanted to throw that across the room too, but he couldn't help but stare at it, ticking away.
I thought that was the last time I'd have to fight you.
Instead, he gently set it down on the nightstand. He'd worked too hard on it to destroy it. The small piece of parchment with the coordinates on it felt like it was calling him. He hadn't told her he could reply, just to use it to send times and location for future raids. He itched to write to her, to ask at least one of the questions swirling around in his head.
But he knew she wouldn't answer, so there was really no point wasting the energy. He just wished he could stop thinking about her. Maybe Harry had a point.
George had discovered the beauty of Muggle bars after the war. It was a place where they could all go without being recognized, approached, photographed, or harassed. It was more peaceful, just being able to go out and be themselves. It provided a wonderful distraction from whatever was going on in the Wizarding world—going somewhere that it wasn't even happening—and that was how George found himself at one of his favorites, reveling in the deafening music blasting from the speakers that flowed into the street outside. It had just opened, so there weren't a lot of patrons yet, but the bartender had a rum and coke in front of him before he even asked.
"Been a while, mate," he said. "Doing alright?" Connor was his name. He wasn't always there when George was, but the more George came in, the chattier he became until he started asking George about himself. He'd told him half the truth; Connor thought he was some kind of undercover detective, so George couldn't tell him any specific details about his work or where it was, which was just fine for the both of them. Connor, on the other hand, had a wife, two boys, and two dogs (both girls, so no one was outnumbered).
"Yeah, just a little busy lately. I've got a case that's been giving me a lot of trouble."
"Well, you're in the right place." More people were starting to file in, so Connor just nodded to him. "Let me know if you need a top off, yeah?"
"Sure. Thanks."
While he went to tend to the rest of the bar, George looked around, surprised that there were people already starting to dance to music he only knew because he was here. It truly was another world coming in here, and he felt himself relax already. After a few drinks over the course of a couple hours, he'd been so preoccupied talking to other people and watching them that Claire had barely crossed his mind.
At least, until he caught sight of a woman walking through the front door in his peripheral, head snapping to look at her. Choppy shoulder-length hair, v-neck top, a couple bangles on her wrist, and heels that made her a few inches taller than she really was. It wasn't Claire, but for a split second, he thought she might be in disguise. He quickly turned back to his drink, saw that it was empty, and motioned for Connor to get him another.
He should probably slow down—the sudden movement had done a number on his reaction time, so he tried to focus on the way the ice moved as he stirred it with the straw instead of—
"Thought I looked like someone?" There she was again, hopping up onto the seat next to him. "I get that a lot for some reason. Must have one of those faces." Up close, she was nothing like Claire. Her voice was too high, she was way too chatty, too friendly. Pretty, though.
"Yeah, kind of," he chuckled. "I didn't even know you noticed me."
"Well, you're pretty hard to miss."
George swallowed. That was flirting, right? She was flirting with him. He cleared his throat and huffed out a laugh, feeling his cheeks flush.
"So are you, then," he laughed.
"What can I get you?" Connor asked her as he came over, eyeing George's drink. "One more?"
"Put it on mine," the woman said. "And a martini for me, please. Extra olives."
"You got it, love."
"So," the woman began, turning to face him, "that girl I look like. Someone you wanted to see?"
"Definitely not."
"An ex?"
"Eh… no. I barely know her but… we haven't had the greatest of interactions." He didn't really know what else to say. To anyone else, he'd sound mad. Hell, he sounded mad to himself half the time these days.
"Had my fair share of those," she grimaced. "Sorry to hear that. Thanks," she told Connor as he brought their drinks. "For the record, though, I'd say our interaction has been pretty good so far. She's not likely to come around here, is she?"
"Not in a million years."
"Good. Means I get you all to myself. I'm Jade." She stuck out her hand.
"George." He shook it. There was no spark of electricity at all, but her skin was soft and warm and he found himself holding onto it a bit too long.
"So what are you doing here tonight, George? You're not looking for your mystery girl, having a drink all by yourself…"
"I could ask you the same thing," he chuckled.
"Oh, I just got dumped not too long ago, actually. You know what they say about getting over someone and all that."
George felt himself getting very warm. He should steer very clear of her, especially with the way he could feel her eyes on her as he took another sip of his drink, feeling it burn its way down his throat. He had every intention of going home with someone tonight, sure, but… it couldn't be her.
So why the fuck was it so tempting? He thought back to the image of Claire above him, wand pointed at his chest. Was he even allowed to find her attractive? He heard the things the girls said about Malfoy—this was the same thing, right? She could be attractive and a terrible person at the same time, right? Those two things could exist simultaneously. What if he let his curiosity get the better of him? Just for tonight. He'd get it out of his system, then go back to work with a clearer head tomorrow. The universe seemed to be pulling him to her, or at least some version of her, so why was he fighting? There was a girl flirting with him, insinuating that she wanted to sleep with him. A pretty girl. A pretty girl who, now that he was looking at her more closely, was really nothing like Claire besides her hair,potentially her height, and her association with the color green.
"Sorry to hear that."
"Are you?"
"No." It slipped out before he realized, but that was all it took for her to take the remainder of his attention. No longer did he care about anyone else in the bar. He didn't care what time it was, how long they were sitting together, how many drinks were flowing between them, even though George had slowed down. Jade was magnetic. Like there hadn't even been a war in the first place. Like he hadn't lost…
"Would you like to dance with me?" He'd noticed her glancing towards the dance floor every once in a while, and he was wondering if she had been trying to find the best time to ask him.
"Dance? Oh, uh, that's… that's not really my thing, I'm afraid." At some point, he'd unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled them up to his elbows, and apparently he'd scooted closer to her, because she suddenly felt like she was only inches away.
Jade smirked, plucking the cherry out of her current drink and wrapping her teeth around it to pull it off the stem. George hated how much it turned him on. "What is your thing then, George?"
"I usually just come here and drink, then… go home," he laughed. "I do have work in the morning."
"Well, that's perfect, because I'm not looking for a breakfast partner at the moment anyway."
How could George say no? He finished off his drink, feeling excitement starting to mix with his simmering arousal. "What do you say to skipping the dancing?"
"Yeah?" One of Jade's perfect eyebrows moved up towards her hairline. "Skip to what?"
"To getting over your ex."
Even in the dim light, George watched her eyes darken. She looked him up and down, then pulled a credit card out of her purse and slid it onto the counter. He pulled out some cash, trying not to struggle with calculating the Muggle money. He usually didn't have a problem, but his brain was very much preoccupied. Connor would understand if it wasn't quite right. He could even it out next time.
He also desperately wished he could Apparate, because the car ride to Jade's flat felt brutal, even if it was only five minutes. Neither of them wanted to make the driver uncomfortable, and George, drunk and horny as he was, honestly was a little uncomfortable, too. He'd never done this before—gone home with a Muggle like he was one too. He rarely ever went home with anyone. That had to be the reason he couldn't get Claire off his mind. He just needed to get laid. That would solve everything.
It didn't, in fact, solve anything. Not when he awoke the next morning, darkness still streaming through Jade's partially opened curtains, rolled over, and was met with blonde hair on the pillow next to him that almost made him jump out of his skin. Once he remembered what had happened the previous night, though, he took a deep breath and quietly maneuvered out of the bed. He felt bad leaving without some kind of goodbye, even though they'd both agreed it wasn't necessary and it felt rude to wake her when she was sleeping so soundly, so he found a spare pen and pad of paper and scribbled a quick note before getting dressed, making his way to the first floor of the building and out the door to a secluded area, then Apparating back home so he could get dressed for work.
One benefit from his evening with Jade was a remarkably better mood when he arrived at the Ministry. He apologized to Harry and Hermione the following morning, even bringing Hermione and egg and cheese bagel sandwich from the cafe. The downside was that reality seemed to hit him again as he walked into his office and noticed a location and a date—the following day—on the scrap of parchment. He put a pin in her location on the map and tried not to feel like the watch was burning into his wrist.
~~~~~~~~~~
"On your left!"
George ducked just in time for a spell to fly over his head, and without looking, he sent a stunning jinx back paired with a satisfying thud. If he couldn't hurt them, he sure as hell could take them down. There'd been no sign of Claire yet, and George had a feeling she was hanging back, either on her own or because she'd been ordered to. He sincerely hoped it was the former, that she was biding her time, waiting for him. Maybe she was stationed somewhere, watching him. Making sure he held true to his promise.
They stunned another two before George could tell they were starting to get nervous. It probably wouldn't be long before they'd have to change up the arrangement, but he'd talk to Claire about that when the time came. Maybe they were smarter than Claire realized. One of them, smaller and slimmer than the rest—which made George suspect that he was younger—kept looking up towards one of the roof of a two-story home that hadn't been touched. It was enough to be suspicious, so George managed to catch Harry's eye between spells and nod his head up there. Harry nodded, and George Apparated.
The sight of her caused a visceral reaction. In the split second before she noticed him, flashbacks of the night before came flooding back: Jade pulling him down for a kiss, her fingers in his hair, her own hair falling down into her face as she climbed on top of him, the warmth of her breath against his neck, nails gently raking down his thighs as she took him into her mouth.
Except instead of Jade, he saw Claire. His stomach flipped. And then she turned to him, barely giving him time to register her gaze before a spell flew his way, which he just managed to block, shooting it off the the side. The fear in Claire's eyes faded only to be replaced with anger that made George's heart beat a little harder. The last time he saw her nervous was when she was cuffed to the table. He loved seeing her confidence slip. His grip on his wand tightened just in case she tried anything else.
"Come up here to fight me again?" she spat, her whole body straightening for a fight.
"If you're down, I'm down."
"Had fun, did you?"
"I like my work to be easy every once in a while."
That earned him a curse towards his chest, which he expertly blocked. "See? Easy." He knew for a fact that she could cast an Unforgivable without a second thought, that it would blast through any shield he tried to put up, that he could be dead in a second. But she needed him if she was going to succeed whatever mission it was that she was on. She wouldn't hurt him, and that gave him much more confidence than it should have.
She made him feel some kind of invincible.
"Don't you have somewhere else to be, Weasley?"
"What are you doing up here?"
"Trying to stay out of trouble."
George actually laughed. "I don't believe that for a second. Who are you watching? Us or them?"
"Why the fuck would I want to see any more of you than I already do?"
"You didn't miss me?"
"Capture two this time, got it?" she ordered, looking back over the ground. "Those two." Claire pointed. "They're the dumbest. No one will even notice and you'll get your bounty."
"Got it." He'd relay the message to the rest of the Aurors, not in any position to not follow her direction. "Do you have any more information for me?"
"No, but it'll be a while before the next raid."
"Why's that?"
"They're getting frustrated. I can tell. Searching and searching and finding nothing. It's exhausting for all of us."
George thought he could spot small dark circles under her eyes, but then he realized he probably shouldn't be looking at her that closely. "Do you know what you're looking for yet?"
"No. Now get back down there before they miss you again. Wouldn't want anyone to keep seeing us together; they might get ideas."
"What kind of ideas?"
How's it going up there? He heard Harry's voice in his ear. He'd engineered something similar to a Muggle walkie-talkie system using a two-way version of an Extendable Ear, but it only worked within a few meters. Anything further than that was still a work in progress, but he couldn't fathom not having a way to communicate with each other mid-mission. So far, it had nearly saved a few lives.
"No threat currently," he responded, which made Claire sneer. "We need to take the one at the northwest corner and the one by that oak tree. No more."
Uh… if you say so. After that, Harry went quiet, but he knew his time with Claire was quickly coming to and end. "We need to talk strategy," he said. "Either through the parchment or we need to find a time to meet privately."
"I'm not meeting with you, Weasley. As I've said, I've been seeing you enough. What more do you need? I'm telling you everything I know."
"They're going to get suspicious," George said simply. "We can't keep doing this much longer."
"We won't. I'm working on it. I'll send you a letter."
"How—" But he didn't get to finish his question, because she once again Disapparated without a trace.
~~~~~~~~~~
Hermione seldom felt overwhelmed by the Ministry's library, but normally, she knew exactly what she was looking for. It was much harder to navigate the multiple floors and shelves and archives when she barely even knew where to start (and also while actually doing the rest of her job). In her downtime, though, she found herself wandering and exploring, sliding her fingers across the spines like she always did at Hogwarts, as if material would magically present itself to her through her skin.
Montague.
She first started with looking for Graham's records, since she knew he bore the same last name and had actually graduated from Hogwarts. Sadly, there hadn't been much definitive information on Claire herself or her parents—at least in the books she had immediate access to. The Aurors didn't really need to do deep dives into family history, so they never bothered getting more than basics whenever they took a Dark Wizard in. Hermione had complained to Harry about that time and time again, and while he understood, he always explained that it wasn't his choice, that of course Hermione was right, but that it was needed infrequently enough that it remained an unimportant step. Now, however, she could write a whole two feet of parchment on how much she wished she had something more than a potential relative. She liked having answers.
But, to her credit, she also loved the research. But she was on a mission—and technically her lunch break—so she only had so much time.
The first place she checked was, naturally, the Records Hall. She quickly discovered that while there was a list of student attendees for each year they spent at Hogwarts, the school records only included their full information once—the year they started—so she quickly did the math and pulled the records for 1990 first, figuring Graham to have been a year ahead of them. Just for good measure, though, she started at the Current Students category, just to make sure he hadn't been in seventh. Alphabetical order made this much easier, but she found herself getting sidetracked. As she flipped through, she paused on names she hadn't seen in years, names she'd never see again. Friends she'd lost to the war, recorded in the first few years of school like nothing would ever happen to them. She liked to think about them as they were in those years, frozen forever on these pages as happy children. She tried not to let herself dwell on the memories—they were the reasons she was doing this.
This would be easier than she thought. There she was: Clarissa Gwendolyn Montague, second year. Hermione let out an audible giggle. Harry was right—she'd go by Claire too. She kept the 1990 record out in case she needed it, but went back to the shelves and pulled the 1989 records, then quickly flipped to Claire's information. Magnolia and Aster Montague. Bingo. She jotted down their names, then put the two books back and moved to the genealogy section. It was actually quite fascinating. She could see herself getting easily distracted with family trees, even if they did seem to be somehow all connected. That, though, actually made this particular task much easier. Purebloods were easy like that in here; she'd thought a few times about trying to see what she could find out about herself, then realized that would probably only bring irritation at the lack of Muggle-born records, and she'd had plenty to say about that with Kingsley already that it didn't need rehashing.
After looking at multiple pages of fold-out family trees, names and connections began to blur together, and not just because they were related. She was nearing the end of her hour, so she took a deep breath and tried to focus, because she couldn't take any of this out with her. Just when she was about to call it for the day, she had it: finally, a line tracing the Montagues to the Fawley family in thirteen generations. And all of it on her mother's side. Claire was a direct descendant of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.
Title: Borrow the Moonlight
Rating: M
Pairing: George/Claire (OC)
Chapters: 6/17
Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Enemies with Benefits, but for real, George falls in love with a Death Eater, Background Harry/Hermione, Background Ron/Katie, Background Ginny/Lia, George is dealing with some not so happy thoughts, eventual smut, not necessarily HEA though, that's what the sequel is for, random side character death, Auror George, Head Auror Harry, Muggle Relations Hermione
Summary: During one night mission, George runs into a Death Eater who doesn't kill him when she has the chance. In fact, she also seems to be rescuing the kids. He can't stop thinking about her, wondering who she is and what all of it means, but will he be able to convince the Auror department--and most importantly, Harry--that he's not losing his mind? Something's different about this case and about this woman, like he knows there's a piece of the puzzle missing. He just has to find it. As always, starring Florence Pugh as Claire and Saoirse Ronan as Lia.
Updated on Mondays!
Read on AO3 or below!
Chapter 5
As it turned out, decoding the Marauder’s Map was a lot easier than George had initially planned. The hard part, however, would be translating it to a different map. Since Hogwarts was some sort of sentient, it could easily read students’ magical signatures on its own and track them on the map or off the map with no trouble depending on where in the castle it detected them. The problem was transferring that to a non-sentient location. The Homunculous Charm—the charm used for the Marauder's Map—had been easy enough on an already magical object, but he didn't want to know the location of every single magical person in England, if he could even figure out how to make it work on that scale. The Marauder's Map was very helpful, even providing corrections to his runes and comments on his notes, but it wasn’t until he reached to grab his coffee and realized that there were already five sitting on his desk that he’d been holed up in his office for days. He’d gotten one location ping from Claire—their agreed upon if you don’t send this within twenty-four hours of leaving this building, we’ll Apparate to you—but otherwise it was silent on all fronts. No more information from Hermione, no updates from Harry, and the raids had stopped as if Claire had snitched or they were at least suspicious. It would have alerted him if she got hurt, so he knew that was at least not a possibility at the moment.
All of the resulting free time had his office covered in sticky notes, runes that had been drawn and crossed out, Arithmancy formulas, lists of charms the map had provided, coffee cups, and sandwich crusts. The main focal point on his corkboard had become a map of England with a duplicated image of Claire’s face next to it. It had been strange at first, feeling like she was watching him, but the more he looked at her, the more confident he felt that this would be worth it. He often spent his thinking time staring into her eyes as if she could give him some answers, very thankful that the duplicate didn’t move. Her murderous gaze towards the camera was a permanent fixture, a reminder of how much she hadn’t wanted to be there. But George knew better. He knew he shouldn’t have hit her, and his hand flexed every once in a while when he thought about it, but he wasn’t sorry. She couldn’t get away with talking to him like that if they were going to work together, and he would have done whatever necessary to make sure that message got through her stubborn head. Even now, just thinking about it had his blood boiling. He’d earned this badge. He’d worked for it, lost so much for it. Who did she think she was?
George turned back to his map, back to her, but her eyes made him hot with anger, so he looked away. There had to be an answer. If the Marauders could accomplish something like this as kids, surely he could manage a simple transfer. Harry had said that Muggles use satellites. When George questioned what they were and how they worked, Harry had done some research and provided the simple explanation that the satellites in space picked up the information from the device, then transmitted back how far away it was from each satellite to get a general location. It wasn't always perfect, but it was better than anything the Ministry currently had. He looked up at the wall clock—something he was increasingly forgetting to do for the past couple of days—and his eyes widened with an idea.
He didn't usually visit home more frequently than Wednesday dinner, but he knew his parents would have no trouble with him popping over unannounced on a Tuesday. And he knew he could use some food other than sandwiches, coffee, and the firewhiskey he'd been drinking in the evenings.
"George! What a surprise!" Molly nearly ran out the door to greet him, pulling him into her usual bone-crushing hug, and he felt himself relax for the first time in a couple days. There really was something about being home that made him feel like his problems weren't as big as he thought they were.
"Hey, Mum." He hugged her back. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"Not at all! You know you're always welcome whenever! Come on in, I'm just making a lasagna, so you're in luck if you want to take some home!" He followed her into the house, eyes on the prize as soon as he walked through the front door. "Your father's working on those pieces for Lia and Ginny again out in the shed. Maybe you can talk some sense into him. If you ask me, I think he's in over his head. It's not that I don't believe in him, of course, but… there's just not enough time for him to try to perfect a new hobby in three months. Especially without magic. Anyway." It was clear she hadn't had many other people to talk to. "What brings you by?"
"It's actually… an idea I had about the case."
"That same one?" Molly asked as she headed into the kitchen and automatically handed him a knife and vegetables to start cutting up. He'd asked her after she'd done this a few times why she didn't just use magic to cook like she usually did. She replied with a smiled and said, "I know when one of my children has a heavy mind. Chopping vegetables tends to give the brain a little room to figure things out. Muggles tend to know a thing or two about that." Since then, he'd never questioned it. "With the Death Eater?" she continued.
"Yeah. We caught her, brought her in, questioned her. And she's agreed to work with us."
Molly raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You trust her?"
"No. But we're tracking her, and she agreed to help us, so clearly she's got something up her sleeve. We just have to figure out what it was. She held up her end of the bargain, which is more than I expected her to do, but now we're just waiting to see where they'll strike next. It's been quiet for a few days, but the tracking spells we have aren't the best and only allow us to find her when she gives us her location. Otherwise we're just Apparating blindly without knowing exactly where we're going, and I don't like that. I want to know where she is on my terms, not hers. I've looked into the Homonculous Charm, but that shows everyone on a map, right? Not just one person?"
His mother smirked. "You want to look at the clock."
"Unless you already know how it works?" George knew it was something of a family heirloom, that it had been passed down through generations of his mother's family and that he'd watched it magically add hands for Ron and Ginny once they were born—and now, sadly, Fred's had disappeared—but he'd never really been curious enough to know the mechanics of it.
"I know the basics. A combination of the Homunculous Charm and Homenum Revelio, but it's based on a certain magical signature. There's an amplification device in the gears that extends the distance, and we programmed locations into it of your most likely places."
"That's why mortal peril and prison are on there?" George asked with a smirk.
"Oh, those were added when you and Fred showed up," she laughed. "Just in case. You two were causing trouble before your first birthday."
"Sounds about right. You said magical signature, though, right?"
"Programmed to the Weasleys only, so it won't show everyone in the house."
"That's what I need."
Molly reached out her palm for George to hand over the knife. "Have at it."
~~~~~~~~
"You know, George, I don't think I've ever been prouder of you," Arthur teased, walking into the living room while George was sitting on the floor, wand in his mouth as a flashlight, unscrewing the back of the Weasley clock and taking the gears out.
"Don't get used to it," George managed with a smile around the wood. "Figuring this out is a pain in the arse."
"Well, don't ask me. I can tell you how regular clocks work, but this one's all the anxiety of the Prewett side. I've always told her it was Sacred Twenty-Eight magic, but she doesn't believe me."
"I'm thinking the same thing." He laughed, taking his wand from his mouth to perform diagnostics. "I've never seen this before, and I'm about to call Hermione over here to look at it."
"What, you don't believe in yourself?"
That gave George pause, and he ran a hand through his hair. "Sometimes I just feel like she's smarter than me."
Arthur sat down on the couch next to him, elbows on his knees. "Well, sure, when it comes to book smarts. And she's quick to solve a problem. But you've been surrounded by magic your whole life, George. Everything she knows, she's had to learn in less time. You know plenty of things she doesn't because you've lived it. Hermione's a brilliant woman, but you're a brilliant man. Don't forget that. Now," he continued, getting up with a small grunt of effort, "I'll leave you to it. If you're anything like me, you don't want to be distracted. As frustrating as it is, I need to get back to work on my project anyway, so—"
"Hey, Dad?"
"Hmm?"
"Thanks. And try not to get too frustrated. You're pretty brilliant yourself; you'll figure it out."
Arthur smiled with pride and nodded. "Thanks, George. That really means a lot. I don't think your mother feels the same way."
"Well, you'll just have to prove her wrong."
George ended up eating dinner sitting on the floor with Molly watching him intently. She refused to let him come over for dinner without spending time together, but she stayed silent, content to just be in the same room as him.
What'cha thinking, Georgie?
Fred's voice made him jump, dropping the gear, then scrambling for it as it made its way across the floor. "Shit," he whispered.
"George!" No matter how old they were, at the Burrow, they were kids.
"Sorry, Mum. I think I've almost got it, though. I'm just trying to find the right—"
There you go.
"That's it! This little bugger right here." It looked like some sort of stone, small as a pea, wedged into the very center of all the mechanisms. The diagnostic spell he ran showed a combination of charms, some of which he'd never even heard of before. But Molly had been right about the basics. It was just a lot more complicated with the different locations. He did see, though, that it was programmed with a spell for each person and each location. Out of his pocket, he pulled the map and spread it out over the floor. If he could duplicate the stone, erase the Weasley information, input Claire's magical signature, and give it the coordinates that were on the map…
Bingo. See, you are brilliant. Don't be so hard on yourself, eh? That's my job.
Half an hour later, he'd done it. One of his dad's old watches worked as a perfect home for the new stone, and as it ticked away on his wrist, a small green dot showed up just south of Bath.
"Gotcha."
He finally realized, once he tried to go to sleep that night, why Harry had been so obsessed with watching Draco on the Marauder's Map. Even if Claire wasn't moving—and she wasn't—he couldn't stop thinking about what if she does. Where would she go? What was she doing? He laid on his back in bed, staring up at the ceiling. What was her role in all of this? Was she just there to play nurse? To wrangle the children? To do whatever else they deemed a woman's purpose? George swallowed hard at that one. No, she wouldn't put up with that. She'd kill one of them before they laid a hand on her. For some reason, it was exactly that thought that allowed him to drift off to sleep.
George called Harry into his office as soon as he'd gotten the map on the wall, honestly proud of himself for the first time in a long time. For the first time he could remember, since the invention of their latest Wheeze. It had been hard to come up with things without Fred, mostly because Fred was more of the prankster of the operation, but also because it was so much easier with two people being creative than just one. But here he was, having accomplished something that actually took time and thought. He really had liked school—at least before Umbridge—even if most of the professors did underestimate them.
"You did it. Oh my God. George, I'm… you're amazing."
"Thanks," George scoffed. "It wasn't too hard once I figured it out, really."
"How did you figure it out?"
"Took apart the clock at the house. Believe me, it took a lot longer to put back together."
"That's brilliant. I didn't even think about that."
"Yeah, I ended up needing some sort of combination of the stuff in the clock with the stuff in the Marauder's Map but…"
"Still." Harry patted him on the back. "Do you think you could write something up on it? The charmwork, anyway. I could run it by Kingsley. This would be… hell, it could change the whole DMLE."
George suddenly felt himself getting warm. "It's… it's still got some tweaking to do, but… yeah, if I can make sure it works, yeah. It's tied to my watch right now."
"Has she moved?"
He shook his head, glad to be changing the subject. "Not since yesterday. I'm not entirely sure how accurate it is… you know, if she moves inside of a building, since it's such a big map, we won't be able to see that, but she's been in that location since last night. I'm honestly kind of worried it didn't work, but I guess we'll see."
"Well, come get a coffee with me. We'll debrief. See what happens, alright? You've done some really good work here, George. Honestly."
"Thanks," he said again, but even though the halls were humming with Aurors and other members of the DMLE, George's head still seemed to be in that little town south of Bath.
"George!" He heard a female voice call his name and looked up to see Aurelia approaching them, but Harry, suddenly, was nowhere to be found. "Hey, where have you been? I've been trying to find you for days!" Her hair was back up in its usual bun.
"Sorry, I've been, uh… well, I've been working on a project and it'd kind of kicked my arse the past few days. I… well, to be honest, I've just been holed up in my office."
"One of those cases, huh? I've been there. Were you able to figure it out?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I think I was. We're kind of…" he glanced back in the direction of his office as if his head had been pulled that way, "waiting, at the moment. To see if it works."
"I'm sure it will," she grinned. "You're smart. Anyway, I, uh…" She looked down at her shoes, and George's heart immediately sank. He knew what this was about to be. "My friend's birthday is next week, and she wants to go bowling of all things."
"Bowling?"
"Yes, and I… well, I've never been bowling before so I was… well, I was going to ask if you'd like to come with me."
"I…" George was quiet for a few seconds, staring at her, stopped in the middle of the hallway, looking up at him expectantly. No one was watching, but he still felt some sort of obligation only because it had been so long since they'd hung out and he'd bet her dinner that he'd managed to get himself out of. "I've never been bowling either."
"Well, see, then we'll both be awful at it and I won't feel so bad."
He wanted to say no. He wanted to make up an excuse. "This case is—"
"George, you just said you've been in your office for days. It'll probably do you good to get some fresh air. And I know it's an important one, okay? If you need to ditch, you ditch. But you've just been… distant. Not just from me, either. This isn't a date. It doesn't have to be."
But she wanted it to be; he could tell that much just in her tone of voice. "I'll let you know, okay? I promise."
Aurelia nodded, but she didn't look convinced.
After briefing, which George was grateful didn't take too long—there wasn't much of an update for anyone, it seemed—he nearly ran back to his office, and when he got there, his heart skipped a beat.
The dot had moved. And with it, on the scrap of parchment he'd charmed with the same one he gave her to pass notes with, were four words written in a curly script: Midsomer Norton. Tomorrow. Dusk.
~~~~~~~~~
George's heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest. Surely Harry couldn't expect him to just wait. "We can't go in until they're there first," he'd explained to the three of them: George, Winter, and Wilder. "Otherwise, they'll know someone spilled," he continued.
Of course it made sense, but that didn't stop George's body from vibrating with nervous energy, partially from the mission but partially because his charm had fucking worked. He'd done something new, at least for the Wizarding World. This wasn't just a silly joke product; Harry was right—this could change the whole Ministry.
And he'd done it for a fucking Death Eater.
"Harry, you can't expect us to just let them kill people!"
"We have to wait until they make the first move. Long enough for it to have gone off on our radar and for us to have Apparated here."
George rolled his eyes, sliding his back down against the brick wall of the building behind them.
"You know this. What's going on with you?"
"I'm just…" He shook his head, trying to turn off the churning in his stomach at the thought of waiting it out. Of waiting them out. Of seeing her again. "Anxious."
"Well, I hate to say it, I really do, but this is a raid, George. I know it's been a while since you've been in the middle of one, but you've got to keep—"
A large explosion sounded on the horizon, and whatever Harry was about to say was cut short as he pulled his wand and held out his hand. "George?"
"It's them," he confirmed, when he tapped the wand and both of the hands pointed in the direction of the noise.
"Showtime."
They waited exactly two and a half minutes before Harry allowed them to Apparate. The longest two and a half minutes of George's life. It felt like a lifetime of waiting, of wondering if she was waiting for them, if she was wondering if they'd even show, wondering if she was holding back or if she was hiding.
When they got to the site, though, it was clear that she wasn't. In the two and a half minutes, they'd already set fire to multiple homes, with families running out of the front doors carrying babies and scrambling cats, letting their dogs run out in front of them just to escape. The screams. The cracking of wood as it burned, the flashes of green and red and blue, even as the sun was setting, froze him. Harry was right—it had been a while since he'd been in the middle of a raid, and even that one hadn't been quite this… violent. He squeezed his eyes shut, but all he could see was Fred. The eyes he barely had time to close, the burn of the smoke in his lungs as he heaved in a breath so he wouldn't pass out. He could feel it now, tightening in his chest and sending bile up into his throat, and when he opened his eyes, he was still at Hogwarts.
"George!" he heard Harry call. Harry. He was alive. They thought Voldemort had killed him, but he was alive. He'd rolled out of Hagrid's arms and—
The whizz of a spell singed the hair on the side of his head, pulling him out of it. He wasn't at Hogwarts. He was here, an Auror. With his team. Trying to save the people who were being terrorized. And the woman he was looking for was standing directly in front of him, panting, her wand pointed in his direction, and time seemed to stop. From the short distance, he couldn't clearly see her expression, but the tilt of her head made his stomach flip. She'd missed him on purpose. For the second time, she'd spared him. Hell, she'd probably saved him, and he didn't want to think about why. He couldn't think about why, firstly because now wasn't the time, but secondly because in this state of mind, his brain was likely to come up with a million reasons, none of which would be true. If she wanted something from him, she needed him alive. That was all it could be.
When the world began moving again, so did she, running off into the woods, and his feet were moving after her before he even realized, dodging spells like it was an instinct, his vision a tunnel with nothing but Claire. Once they passed the tree cover, he saw her bank to the left, so he did too. The smoke from the fires was moving into the trees, stinging his eyes and clouding his vision, so he slowed. His hand was already sweating from how tightly he was gripping his wand, but he didn't dare release it. He had no idea what this woman was capable of outside of handcuffs, and he wasn't about to fool himself into thinking just because she'd spared him before, she would do it again. Had her plan all along been to lure him out from the rest of the Aurors so she could get him alone to kill him? Once he was gone, they'd be an easier target, wouldn't they?
The snap of a twig took his attention just as he had to duck out of the way of a spell coming from the other direction. The blast he sent back shattered a tree branch and he saw her run, sending a hex her way that she skillfully dodged before shooting back one at him without even looking. Of course she had good aim; he knew that when she'd missed him.
"Stop running and fucking fight, Claire!" he called into the smoke, only to hear no response. He'd forgotten, though, how skilled the Death Eaters were at close-quarters Apparation, and she appeared behind him, a split-second of searing body heat against his back while her arm tried to wrap around his neck. He had a foot of height on her, though, and he was quick to dodge it, only to immediately feel a blow to his gut that had him doubling over in pain, staggering backwards and tripping over a tree root.
"What a turn of power dynamics this is," she said from above him, wand aimed directly at his chest. Maybe the smoke was getting to him, or maybe it was because he hadn't eaten much for breakfast, but from this angle, with one foot on either side of his left leg, her hair in her face and his life in her hands, he couldn't help but wonder if maybe in another universe, if she'd stayed at Hogwarts, if he would have found her attractive.
George scrambled up before he could dwell any more on the thought, and her wand followed. "You brought me out here. Stop wasting my time." But the only answer she gave was another hex that he had to dodge. It was just a back and forth for her, feeling him out, learning how he fought. Splinters and dirt flew where their spells hit, ducking and maneuvering like they'd dueled before. Like they'd been dueling for years. How was she so good at predicting his next move? She was strong. She was quick. She was brutal. After a few minutes, though, George's patience, and his endurance, was wearing gravely thin. He eyed their surroundings and rotated them accordingly, carefully stepped forward to make her step back until she was a few feet away from a small tree. He pointed his wand straight up, casting a small fireball into the sky as a distraction, then while she was watching it, ropes shot out of his wand, securely tying her to the trunk with a grunt, wand still clenched in her fist but pointed down at the ground, unable to be moved.
"Fuck," she panted, struggling against the tight restraints. "Let me go!"
"What was that about a turn of power dynamics?" George panted back, snatching Claire's wand from her hand, twirling it between his fingers and noticing how her eyes followed the movement.
"Fuck you."
"What, going to spit on me again?"
"You'd love that, wouldn't you?"
Even though she was unable to move, he slammed his hand onto the bark next to her head, its rough surface irritating his palm. Sweat was starting to bead at her hairline, sticking fine wisps to her skin, threatening to drip down her temple, and the closer her got, the quicker her breath became. The more she avoided his eye. So he was intimidating when she had no choice. He fought the urge to look at her, to stare, to let his eyes bore into hers for a moment like they did in his office, just to see what she would do. Would she dare to spit on him again or had she learned her lesson? "What else do you know?" he demanded.
"Let me go and I'll tell you."
"Tell me and I'll let you go."
Claire's mouth twitch up in a sarcastic smile. "We're playing that game?"
"Funny coming from the woman tied to a tree."
Almost just to prove George's point, she struggled, her shoulders moving barely an inch. It only made her pant harder. "They'll come after you once they realize I'm gone."
"Good. Easier to capture."
She shook her head in disbelief. "You're not getting shit out of me like this. You're complaining about wasting time but you're just making it last longer. More opportunity for your men to get hurt. You don't want that on your hands do you, Weasley?"
"How do I know you're not going to run away?"
"You can Apparate to me. I'm not fucking stupid."
George took a deep breath, wishing she'd stop proving him right. But without a word, the ropes dropped from Claire's body and she rolled her shoulders, holding out her hand for her wand. "No. Not until you tell me what you know."
"For fuck's sake, George." She huffed, and for a moment, George felt like a Death Eater facade had dropped away. "We're heading north to Dundry. That's all I know."
"What are they looking for?"
"I don't know, I've told you!"
"So you're just blindly following whoever's in charge based off of what? Trust?"
"They're… they're making some kind of map, I guess. Or they have a map and we're crossing locations off."
"But what would Death Eaters be doing seaching Muggle villages?!"
"I don't fucking know!" She reached for her wand, but George snatched it away, holding over his head like they were children. "I'm not high up enough in the ranks I guess to know information like that. They just keep telling up it'll help our cause whenever we find it."
"Because you're a woman? They don't trust you with the big boy plans?"
"You don't trust me." She almost sounded hurt.
"And you don't trust me either. Guess that makes us even."
"I trusted you until you froze. Or did you miss the way I saved your ass back there?! They would have killed you, George! You're a fucking Auror and if you're trying to prove it to me, you need to fucking act like it. This deal we made only works if your head is on straight. And I don't know what the fuck it is you're doing or what you think you're trying to do, but if I can't trust you to actually catch these idiots like we agreed on, when we agreed on, how the fuck do you expect me to do what it is that you want?" He hated that he couldn't read her. She seemed genuinely angry, confused, scared, and sad all at the same time. He chalked up her watery eyes to the smoke, because surely she wasn't crying… was she?
George's shoulders dropped. Again, she was right. He couldn't wait to get out of her sight again because he hated what her presence was doing to him. Worst of all, he didn't know why. Why was she having such an effect on him? No other mission had wedged itself in every single waking thought, every moment, every report, ever second of the night that he checked his map or checked his watch. He needed to get his shit together before he continued, because he sure as hell couldn't do this anymore. He tossed Claire's wand onto the ground in front of her and she snatched it up. "I thought the last time I'd have to fight Death Eaters was when I lost my brother!" He was going to let her go anyway—what did he care when she made that decision? He needed to get back to helping the others anyway. He could hear his blood rushing in his ears. The smoke was starting to sting his eyes, too.
"And I thought that was the last time I'd have to fight you!"
Before he could even fully process what she'd said, Claire was gone in a cloud of smoke, eyes wide as if she'd given away something she shouldn't have. But she had. They'd fought before. She'd been at the Battle of Hogwarts? She'd dueled him specifically? Had she studied the way he fought, remembered it, and pulled it out just for this moment? She'd remembered him, given herself up for capture, agreed to work with the Minstry, with him, knew how he fought… who the hell was this woman?
Thankfully, as soon as Claire had Disapparated, the others did too, and when George made his way back to the village, he was thrilled to hear that there were no casualties. No orphans today. They took half an hour to get the small town back to normal to the shocked faces of the Muggles, then called in the Obliviators. When they got back to the Ministry, everyone went to go get patched up, but George had other plans.
He barged into Hermione's office without even bothering to knock. "What have you found out about Claire?"
"Good to see you, too," Hermione chuckled, stopping her notes and tapping the cap end of her pen on an open book. "That's what I'm working on right now, actually. I think I found part of a family tree, but I have to cross reference it with some other resources to make sure it's right. Believe it or not, Montague is a fairly common—"
"But who is she, Granger? What's her plan? Where did she come from?"
Hermione paused, clearly taken aback. "Excuse me?"
"It's been days and all you can find is half a page of notes?!"
"George, I'm doing my best—"
"Well, do better. I can't fucking stand—"
"Don't you dare talk to her like that, Weasley." He spun, and Harry was behind him, eyebrows pinched together. "You do not talk that way to your coworker and you sure as hell do not talk like that to my fiancee, you got that?" Harry stepped closer. It was the angriest he'd seen Harry in a long time, but George was angry too. He was furious. How can the entirety of the Ministry have nothing on this woman when she clearly knew so much about them? "If you can recall, it was your idea to work with her, your idea to trust her, and your," he punctuated the last one with a fingertip jabbed into George's chest, height difference aside, "idea to put our team in danger to go where she told us knowing we'd be walking into a full-blown raid. We're lucky no one was hurt, because that doesn't always fucking happen. Especially when you run off and leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves. And you know I'm speaking as your boss right now when I say that Hermione is doing all of this research for you, and you'd do well to remember that. Are we clear?"
"I—"
"Are we clear?" he repeated, and George knew he had no choice.
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Now get out of this office. Go home. You're done for the day."
Title: Borrow the Moonlight
Rating: M
Pairing: George/Claire (OC)
Chapters: 5/17
Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Enemies with Benefits, but for real, George falls in love with a Death Eater, Background Harry/Hermione, Background Ron/Katie, Background Ginny/Lia, George is dealing with some not so happy thoughts, eventual smut, not necessarily HEA though, that's what the sequel is for, random side character death, Auror George, Head Auror Harry, Muggle Relations Hermione
Summary: During one night mission, George runs into a Death Eater who doesn't kill him when she has the chance. In fact, she also seems to be rescuing the kids. He can't stop thinking about her, wondering who she is and what all of it means, but will he be able to convince the Auror department--and most importantly, Harry--that he's not losing his mind? Something's different about this case and about this woman, like he knows there's a piece of the puzzle missing. He just has to find it. As always, starring Florence Pugh as Claire and Saoirse Ronan as Lia.
Updated on Mondays!
Read on AO3 or below!
Chapter 4
“If you wanted me to find you any faster, you could have stayed at Mungo’s.” George wasn’t about to break eye contact with her, no matter how intimidating it was. At the same time, though, he was enthralled by her. She wasn’t the first female Death Eater he’d ever interacted with, but it was the first one he’d seen up close. They were rare, which somehow made Claire all the more fascinating. Fascinating when his brain couldn’t stop wondering if she was at the Battle of Hogwarts. If she’d fought against them. If she’d been one of them. If she’d killed any of his friends. If he’d shot a spell at her and missed. His fist clenched by his side as he tried not to let his blood boil at the thought. Maybe being alone with her here wasn’t a good idea. Maybe he needed Harry after all.
“I had shit to do,” she said, no change of expression.
No. He could do this. He’d have to deal with worse later, surely. This woman was nothing. “Like plundering more Muggle villages?”
Claire scoffed out a laugh.”Plundering? What am I, a fucking pirate?”
George’s cheeks heated. He couldn’t let her get under his skin, not when he needed to find out the real reason behind the attacks. “Well,” he squared his shoulders in an attempt to portray more confidence than he had, “pirates are looking for treasure. What are you looking for?”
“Who says I’m looking for anything?”
“What are you doing then? Burning them down for fun?”
“Would you put it past me?”
George let out a chuckle at that. The last Death Eater he knew who would burn down a whole village just for the hell of it was Bellatrix Lestrange, and Claire didn’t seem that mental. Someone who burned down village for the hell of it wouldn’t bother saving the kids. He took a breath, then finally moved closer to the table and turned his chair around, sitting backwards it in with his forearms resting on the back. He didn’t miss the way Claire’s gaze broke from his to briefly travel down his body, then back up; it made his stomach clench painfully. “Why did you save those kids? Why have you been saving them?”
“We’re not saving them.”
“You’re not killing them. That’s not saving them?”
Claire let out an annoyed sigh, looking down at her handcuffs and turning her wrists over. George could just barely make out the tail end of her Dark Mark sticking out under her left sleeve. His heart skipped a beat at the realness of it all. Of course it was real. Of course he was here with a Death Eater. But the Dark Mark just confirmed that she was one of them, that she thought like one of them. That she hated like one of them. “Any magical children are being recruited.”
“Those kids would be Muggleborns. Isn’t that kind of your whole thing? Keeping blood pure? Why would you want them?”
“It’s a lot more than that now, Weasley. It’s not about purity; it’s about numbers. We start recruiting Mudbloods before they know any better, in a few generations, we’ll outnumber the Muggles. You’d be surprised how many adults are starting to join us, too. Cutting ties with their family once they realize our power. Their power.”
“So how are you determining who starts? Drawing straws to see who’s the first to have to fuck a Muggleborn?”
The sound of metal clinking rang through the room as Claire pulled on her cuffs in an attempt to surge forward towards George instead of away from him. He tried not to smirk at the twitch of her upper lip. Definitely a sore spot. He'd found a weakness. “Not your type then?” He could barely control himself. All he wanted to do was push her. See how far he could go. This... this was power. This was something he could control. She was something he could control. Here, at his fingertips, was exactly what he’d been looking for. Here in front of him sat someone who he couldn’t disappoint. Suddenly, everything in this interrogation was in his favor. If he said the words, she’d be in Azkaban. She’d be dragged out of here and fed to the Dementors. Her fate was entirely in his hands, and that thought alone made him sit up a bit straighter. George couldn’t help but wonder for a moment how many Death Eaters it took to really satisfy a Dementor, if the little soul they had left had the creatures still starving when they were done.
Despite her anger, Claire barked out a sarcastic laugh. “You’re asking my type, Weasley? Funny.”
“Come on, Claire. I thought we were trying to get to know each other.”
“No, you’re trying to get to know me. I already know all I need to about you.”
“Is that why you didn’t kill me?”
Out of everything he’d said to her, that seemed to rattle her the most. He caught the clench of her jaw, the flare of her nostrils, the near-nonexistent narrowing of her eyes, the way her eyes seemed to bore into his. She knew better than to lie, so she just stayed silent, fixing her mouth into a narrow line. George took that as permission to continue.
“If you’re not looking for anything, and you’re not looking for anyone, why is it that you wanted us to find you? Why did you want me to find you?" Again, he was met with silence. Claire's eyes even darted to the side for a split second, breaking contact and allowing George the opportunity to breathe. He could almost hear her heart speeding up. There was something building between them, some tension he knew he just had to snap. If he could do that, he'd get his answers. If he didn't know any better, he'd say it was a bit arousing, actually. Mentally, of course. Only mentally. If he could just break her...
He stood to turn the chair back around, parroting her pose when he sat and leaning forward on his elbows to close a bit of distance. Her breath hitched with nerves, but she didn't dare lean back, didn't dare show her weakness too loudly.
"Listen, there are two ways we can do this, okay? You answer my questions. Or..." he pulled a small vial of veritaserum from his jacket pocket, setting it on the table between his elbows, "I could give you this and ask you again. Which will it be?"
Across the table, Claire took a few deep, contemplating breaths. "I don't know what they're looking for. They tasked me with rounding up the kids because I'm the only woman and they thought they might feel safer with me."
"They're not looking for your mum, are they?" Claire bristled, anger etching on her forehead. Bingo. "You're trying to find her first? And you think by being captured, you can somehow persuade us to find her for you?"
"Oh, you'll find I can be very persuasive."
"She's got something that you need, doesn't she?"
"She doesn't have anything I need."
"Maybe not physical, but she ran away, didn't she? She left you. And look what you did. Went and joined the Death Eaters?" Claire's breathing was getting harsher, coming out in spurts through her nose. Her fists were clenched in the cuffs and he could feel the hatred radiating off of her. It was thrilling, knowing he was so close. "What would your parents think if they could see what you've become, Clarissa?"
George felt the warmth and wetness on his face before he even realized that she'd spat on him. There was an odd look in her eyes: loathing, no remorse, but with a glimpse of shock that she corrected in a blink. The handcuffs were taught as she tried to stand, cutting into her wrists, but she didn't seem fazed by the pain. If anything, it only made her angrier.
"Don't you ever fucking call me that again,” she growled. “That’s not my name. That girl died a long time ago.” So her weak spot was her mother? Her name? Her family?
As he wiped her spit off his cheek with the edge of his sleeve, something seemed to settle in his chest that he hadn't felt in a long time. After the battle, he'd stuck his toes in the darkness. Dabbled around with some shady spells. He told himself it was to try to figure out the other side, but it was really just to experience what it felt like to have that much control over the world around him. If he'd had control, Fred might have lived. If he was comfortable with killing, he could have struck first. He'd found that the most affective way to get the anger out of his body was to be destructive with it. He family and friends were never the wiser, and no one ever found the strange patch of land far from the Burrow riddled with dead plants and holes in the ground and his own blood in the tiny pond. After a while, though, it got more cathartic and he didn't like the heaviness he felt when he stepped back to look at what he'd done. He had walked away and hadn't looked back, just pushed down that desire and pretend it didn't exist whenever it came around, knowing what he was capable of. Around his family and his friends, he had to be a good person. He had to appear like he had any idea of what he was doing with his life. Here, though, with Claire, he could take down that mask. Let her anger feed his. She expected the worst version of him, and who would he be to prove her wrong?
“There’s a nice cell in Azkaban with your name on it for that, you know.” If she was scared, she didn’t show it.
“Oh, like you haven’t gotten spit on before, mouthing shit like that. If your fucking sister hadn’t been so pitiful and stupid that she had to go and spill all her secrets to a fucking diary that she didn’t question talking back to her, neither of us would be here right now, would we? You wouldn’t be a fucking Auror, pretending like you’ve got any power over me just because the bloody Chosen One handed you a badge.”
The slap of the back of his hand against her cheek echoed through the small room, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Harry had heard it on the other side of the door. Claire slumped back into her chair, red-faced and watery-eyed. Her bottom lip quivered for only a second before she caught his eye. She was angry, and hurt—rightfully so—but the tilt of her mouth conveyed a much more sinister emotion that he didn’t even want to give a second thought to, but it was a look that the reawakened darkness inside of him wanted to bury itself in as the small vial of veritaserum rolled in a slow arc between them.
George quickly straightened. “Care to repeat that?”
A low mutter. “You heard me.”
He flexed his hands into fist, glad he didn’t have his wand on him after all if she was going to keep pushing his buttons the way he was pushing hers. But he couldn’t help the way his own heart sped up with adrenaline. It felt like that first time flying again, falling and falling, knowing at any second he could crash if he didn’t pull up in time. The color on her cheek darkened.
“You think I don’t have any power over you when you’re the one cuffed to a table.”
“Well, there’s a pretty clear solution for that, isn’t there?”
“Funny.”
“You said you wanted answers, right?”
George’s eye narrowed. “You said you didn’t have them.”
“But I know people who do. All you’ve got to do is let me go.”
He leaned back in his chair, arms crossing over his chest. “Let you go?”
“You asked me why I wanted you to find me, Weasley, and now I’m telling you. You let me go, give me a clean slate, and I can get you information. I’ll go back to them, pretend I escaped.”
“Why would you do that?”
“It’s called a double agent. Ever heard of it?”
George paused. This wasn’t their plan. This was nowhere close to their plan. And yet... here she was, offering herself up. It was what they were looking for, wasn’t it? “And what is it that you get out of this?”
Claire shifted, sitting up straighter. “I don’t know what they’re looking for, but it’s obvious they’re using me to find it. They’ll come for me and you’ll just have to do this all over again.”
The veritaserum was looking more and more tempting by the second. How could he believe her? Why would he believe her? He asked her as much.
“You’re asking the one in the cuffs? It’s either that or Azkaban, right? I know how this works.”
He took a breath, considering it. They’d never done anything like this before since he’d been an Auror, but it couldn’t be outside of the realm of possibility, could it? Snape had been a double agent, and surely there had been others during both wars. What was the difference?
Harry had left him in charge.
Harry trusted his judgment. He trusted George to make the right choice. And what better promise of power than a bargain? George wasn't the best at thinking on his feet, but it couldn't be that hard to make up some sort of plan, right? He could figure out more specifics if he needed to later. Right now, his main priority was coming up with something she'd actually agree to while sounding like he knew exactly what he was doing.
“I’ll equip you with a tracking spell so we can keep an eye on your movement. At each location, we will meet and you will provide me with whatever information you can. Next stop, any development on what they’re looking for, anything like that. Do you understand? If you don’t, or if your information is incorrect, I can Apparate to the tracker’s location and there will be no hesitation to bring you in and we will bring the entirety of the DMLE. Is that clear?” He took her silence as an answer. “But I know how this works, too. What’s your part of the deal?”
“There is someone in the group you cannot touch until I say to do so. I will not tell you who he is or where he is, but on my order, whenever I deem fit, you will pull him out. Harm him and there will be no hesitation for me to shove your wand so far up your arse you'll be coughing up splinters for the rest of your life. Is that clear?"
One search of her eyes and George knew she would make good on that promise were they to break it. "How are we supposed to not harm him if we don't know who he is?"
"Is that a chance you're willing to take?"
George knew if he left the room, he'd change his mind, that the tension would dissolve, that the moment with Claire would be over, that he'd lose his momentum. He had to make a decision now, while the rubber band was still taut and her green eyes were boring into his with more determination than she'd entered with. Merlin, maybe he was actually turned on after all. She'd gotten what she wanted, but if he were to take this deal, so would he. And they'd have the location of an entire group of Death Eaters. He'd be mad not to accept.
He reached out quickly towards her, seeing if she would flinch again. She didn't. Instead, she simply took it in hers with a firm handshake while George tried to ignore the electricity that came with it.
Harry didn’t know what to expect out of this interrogation. They’d successfully captured a Death Eater who’d destroyed villages, orphaned children, kidnapped them, and stolen from St. Mungo’s. And that was just in the last week. He flipped through Claire’s file once more while he waited for George, trying to remember where he’d seen the name Montague before. She would have been in Fred and George’s year at Hogwarts, so he didn’t remember her, but he remembered Hermione mentioning the name after a Quidditch game and being excited because it reminded her of a play or something. Maybe he'd ask her if she remembered anything once they were done here. His fiancee, whether Harry liked it or not, tended to remember just about everything.
It didn't feel like George could have been in there for more than ten minutes before the door was opening and he emerged, closing it softly behind him. The DMLE officer who'd been trying not to make too much conversation with him perked his head up.
"Well?" Harry asked.
George looked at Harry for a brief moment, then back at the officer. "Let her go," he muttered. "She's not who we're looking for."
"I'm sorry, what?" Harry spoke before he could stop himself. The officer furrowed his eyebrows at George.
"She's not the person we're looking for," George repeated.
"George—"
"We were wrong," he admitted, taking a deep breath, but Harry caught something; George wasn't being completely truthful, and Harry was fighting to keep his face neutral. What the hell was he trying to do?
"Right then. Sorry for the waste of time," the officer replied, opening the door for the two of them. "If we get anything of importance 'round the case, we'll let you know."
"Thank you," George said with a nod at him. "She shouldn't give you any trouble on the way out."
"Thank Merlin," the man sighed.
Harry cleared his throat softly. "George. A word in my office, please?"
Nervously, George's hands clasped on front of him. "Of course."
They were silent as they made their way to Harry's office, Harry out of true inability to think of what to say and George probably because there was something to say he didn't want to be overheard. It didn't help the nerves swirling around in his stomach, waiting for whatever it was George had to say for himself. It made him angry, the way that they'd gone in with a plan that clearly George hadn't adhered to. He knew he should have been in there with him, helping him, making sure he didn't get off track. George had been on the team long enough that he should have known better. Any change in direction should have been discussed with Harry. They knew Claire was guilty.
"You better have a damn good explanation for me, Weasley," he said as soon as the door to his office was closed.
George subconsciously flinched, as he always did when Harry used his last name. It was his sure fire way to let George know he was in boss mode, which admittedly didn’t happen as often as it probably should.
“I do—"
“In no discussion did we agree that we were going to let her go. We spent way too many resources and way too much time for you to come out of that interrogation room and tell us to just let her walk out of it with absolutely no consequences.”
“Harry.”
“No, I’m not done yet. I trusted you to go in there and get answers, George. I gave you the interrogation by yourself with the understanding that you would go in there and do what we’d talked about.”
“I’m sorry.”
Hopefully done with his Head Auror scolding and ready to listen, Harry sat down in his chair and motioned for George to take the seat across from him. “So tell me what happened.”
The story that came out of George’s mouth sounded like something from one of the Muggle books Hermione loved to complain about, but couldn’t stop filling their house with. But more importantly, a Death Eater had agreed to work with them.
“And what the hell do you think Kingsley will say when I have to be the one to tell him this?” Harry rubbed his forehead. “What if this doesn’t work?”
George paused. Clearly he hadn’t thought that part through. “I... I’ve already put the tracker on her. Either way, we’ll be able to locate them.”
“And if she splits from the group?”
“I don’t think she will, Harry. There’s someone in there she’s trying to protect, remember? They’re not going to stop looking for whatever it is they’re looking for, and she herself said they can’t do it without her. I know it all seems mad but... I dunno. I feel like...”
“Like you can trust her?”
George nodded. “No, I don’t trust her, but I think she’s got a good reason to work with us, even if it’s not what she told me.”
The sigh that left Harry’s mouth felt like he was letting all the air out of his body. He massaged his temples, knowing he’d have to have a better explanation than George if Kingsley started asking too many questions. He’d have to cover for him. God help him.
“For all of our sakes, George, I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”
After about an hour of discussion, Harry felt like they had a somewhat concrete course of action: they were going to follow George’s plan. With the tracker on Claire, George would be able to locate her at any point he wanted. If they didn’t hear from her in twenty-four hours, and George insisted Claire promised she’d find a way to contact them, George would use the spell and they would Apparate near her location so they wouldn’t get suspicious, then see if they could find her. They agreed to update the plan as needed once Claire had information to share, and Harry made sure George knew that if anything went wrong, it would be entirely on him. Harry could only back him up so far.
The next part of their plan was Harry’s favorite because it involved going to see Hermione. He didn’t visit her at work often, mostly because she was extremely distracting and he always ended up spending more time there than he intended. How could he possibly content with just a few hours in the evening?
Hermione’s office was, predictably, much neater than his own. Where Harry’s desk was full of notes and papers and folders, half-empty coffee cups from the morning when he got too distracted to finish them, Hermione’s was immaculate. Everything on her desk was meticulously organized and separated by degree of importance, color coded, and filed in some system only Hermione’s brain could make sense of. Harry loved it.
“Mrs. Potter,” he said with a smirk as he leaned against her doorway. Even without looking up from her work, Harry could make out a shy smile. Even though they were barely engaged, he never missed the way she reacted when he called her that. “Are you busy?”
“Always. But for you, Mr. Potter, never.” She looked towards him, leaning her chin in her hand. “How did the interrogation go?”
Harry looked down the hall to make sure no one was listening in, then stepped into Hermione’s office and closed the door for good measure. Hermione’s eyes flicked towards it, then back to Harry, one eyebrow raising suggestively. He didn't usually close her door, and the flash of a smirk gave Harry a glimpse of what ideas were going through her head.
Unfortunately, they didn't exactly have the time for any of them, and Harry just cleared his throat softly. "That's... kind of what I wanted to talk to you about, actually."
Two small lines appeared between Hermione's eyebrows as they furrowed together—Harry's favorite expression. "Have a seat, then. I assume since you closed the door, this doesn't need to leave this room?"
"George kind of... went against instruction," he began as he pulled over a chair from the corner of Hermione's office and sat down across from her.
Hermione's eyes widened. "What? What do you mean?"
"He improvised. We went in with a plan and... he came out with a different one. Something happened in there, Hermione. There's something he's not telling me."
Hermione took a deep breath. "What did he come up with?"
"She's working with us. For us. A double agent. She's providing us information in exchange for a clean record."
"And George promised her that?"
"Yes."
"Can he do that?"
"Technically, no."
"Right." There were a couple seconds of silence between them while Harry watched Hermione's brain work. "You think he's... what? Losing it or something? Doing it on purpose? Trying to... undermine your authority?"
"I don't know, Hermione." He shook his head. "I don't know what he was thinking, and I'm not entirely convinced she didn't... I dunno... charm him or something? It doesn't seem like he's under any kind of spell, and she didn't have her wand, but he went in there alone and now I'm wondering if the entire Auror department is going to be affected by this."
Hermione let out a soft chuckle. "I don't think you need to be that paranoid, Harry, but we've been concerned about George for a while now. Maybe he's just taking advantage of you giving him the lead on this one. He's trying to be in charge, seeing what he can think up, and seeing if it'll work."
"We had a plan—"
"I didn't say it was the right thing for him to do. I'm just wondering if he tried to bite off more than he can chew."
"With a Death Eater?"
Hermione took a sip of her tea, then gingerly set her mug down. "He's still hurting, Harry. You're giving him the opportunity to maybe give himself some closure. Of course he's going to take it and if something changed during that interrogation that made him want to change the action you're taking, he's going to do it. Again, that's not to say it's right, but I think right now he's just looking to you for support. We've all got each other."
"He's got us too!"
"You know it's not the same." She reached over to take Harry's hands in hers, running her thumbs gently over his skin. "I wouldn't have been able to survive the war without you, Harry. I can't even imagine how he's still feeling, even after all this time."
"It doesn't mean that he's allowed to just break protocol."
"I know. But you can deal with that when you need to. I say we keep a close eye on him, but I said this would be good for him, and I meant it. You still trust him, don't you?"
"Of course."
"Then let yourself trust him and clean up when it's all over. Isn't that what we're best at doing anyway?"
Harry smirked. "Just like old times." He pulled his hands back. "Speaking of which... that's not the only reason I can here to talk to you."
"Always when you need something from me, huh?" Hermione teased.
"Would you rather me ask when we get home?"
"God, no. Let's hear it."
"She told George that the Death Eaters were looking for something, but she doesn't know what it is."
"Does he believe that?"
"That they're looking for something, yes. But not that she doesn't know what it is. She was very clear about other instructions to protect one of them, but she wouldn't tell him who in fear that we would just go after him to get her to talk."
"Smart."
"Seems so."
"A partner?"
"Or family. She seemed to be a bit sensitive about that, and those are the only two categories of people I'd be that dramatic about."
"You almost got yourself killed for all of your friends, Harry. Multiple times," Hermione playfully reminded him.
"Okay, well, I think we can classify my situation as a bit different, yeah?"
"Fine." Hermione smirked. "I'll give you that one."
"I was hoping I could put that mind of yours to the test again since you did such an amazing job for us the first time."
"Flattery will get you everywhere. Go on."
Harry pulled the file out of his robes and set it down on the desk between them. "Here's all the information we were able to pull on her."
"And why do you think I can help?"
"They're searching Muggle villages. There's got to be some connection somewhere, even if they are Purebloods."
Slowly, Hermione opened the file, letting her eyes scan over the page. "Montague. There was a Montague on the Quidditch team, remember? What was that... fifth year? Yes, it had to be. I think he was a member of that damn Inquisitorial Squad.
Harry smirked. "That name was in a play or something, wasn't it? I remember you talking about it."
Hermione's eyes flicked up to Harry's. "That maybe the most attractive thing you've said to me in the thirteen years I’ve known you.”
Harry couldn’t help but blush, suddenly wishing once more that they had more time alone. “Good to know that ‘Will you marry me?’ didn’t make the cut.”
“Oh please, that wasn’t attractive, it was inevitable.”
“What!?”
“Anyway,” Hermione continued with a smile, playfully changing the subject back. “Montague. In Slytherin. Pureblood. And I’ve got names of her parents. Let me see what else I can find about her family.” She looked past Harry, to the walls of bookshelves lining her office. “I’m sure there’s something in there somewhere.” Hermione placed the file on the top her of stack.
“If there is, I know you’ll find it.”
“And if there’s not?”
“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
By the time he got back to his office, George was at his desk, a half-empty cup of coffee next to him, moving between scribbling on a piece of parchment and flipping through a book, back and forth between pages he’d put pencils in as bookmarks.
“Uh... George? What are you working on there?”
George nearly jumped at the sound of his name, clearly not having heard Harry approach. He waved without even looking. “Hey. Sorry. I had an idea and I figured I might as well get it down before I forgot. And I... kind of needed something in here.”
Frowning, Harry moved closer to see that the book George was looking through was full of runes Harry had never even seen before. The other folded piece of parchment on the desk seemed to be filling itself with writing and runes of its own. It looked oddly like... Harry checked the secret drawer in his desk only to find it empty. “What are you doing with that?” he asked, not trying to be overly protective since technically, George had given it to him in the first place. The Marauder’s Map.
“Well, my idea was that the tracking spell I put on Claire lets me know her location when she sends it to me, right? But since it’s attached to her magical signature, I was hoping that maybe there’d be a way to find her whenever we want to.”
“Oh, that’s brilliant, actually. Like a Garmin?”
George looked up from his work, perplexed. “A what?”
“It’s, uh... a Muggle thing. It goes in your car and, like, tells you how to get where you’re going. Apparently it knows where you are at all times. Then you can just plug in where you want to go and it’ll tell you what roads to take.”
“Oh, Dad would have a fit,” George grinned. “Crazy what they can come up with, huh?”
“Tell me about it.” He took the seat next to George, looking over what was written on the map. “Is it... telling you anything?”
“It’s not... I don’t think it’s them if that’s what you’re asking.” Harry hated how easily George could see through him. “I mean, it’s kind of sentient, but I think it’s more... designed to react certain ways to certain people. It’s not like...” The diary. Harry silently finished the sentence for him. It made sense, of course, but Harry couldn’t tell if he was happy or sad about that. After six years without any kind of sign from his parents, it was better if he never did again, but every once in a while, he thought about the Resurrection Stone, how he’d dropped it onto the floor of the Forbidden Forest, and who knew where the hell it was now. Probably sitting right on top of the pile in some niffler’s den, if he had to guess. He hadn’t told George about it. He almost did, once, but he knew George would go looking for it. Even now, sitting here, looking at him frantically copy runes into a notebook, trying to create a new spell, brilliant as he was, he worried George would go looking for it. It wasn’t difficult for him to become obsessed with things like that. Anything to occupy his mind. The same thing had happened to Hermione right after the war; she never let her thoughts quiet for a second, because if they did, she’d remember.
It had been hard for Harry to see her like that, so much so that he’d distanced himself from them for a while in an attempt to escape the guilt of realizing what he’d brought out in the people he loved. He’d let Hermione know not to worry (but of course she did) and spent a few weeks living in Muggle Edinburgh just to go somewhere he wouldn’t be recognized. It had been wonderful and healing and exactly what he’d needed, but at the end of the day, he missed them. The new friends he made and the people he surrounded himself with didn’t understand why he was so jumpy, why he never wanted to sleep anywhere but his own bed, why he didn’t want to travel or go anywhere too far from home. Why he was always looking over his shoulder or avoiding people with cloaks.
When he returned, he realized that the best way for all of them to heal was to go at it together, and that they couldn’t be afraid of being judged for anything they were feeling, that letting it out was better than holding it in.
Though now, he couldn’t be sure that with the resurgence of the Death Eaters, something dark wasn’t brewing in George again, too. And if it was, Harry wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stop it this time.
Title: Borrow the Moonlight
Rating: M
Pairing: George/Claire (OC)
Chapters: 4/17
Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Enemies with Benefits, but for real, George falls in love with a Death Eater, Background Harry/Hermione, Background Ron/Katie, Background Ginny/Lia, George is dealing with some not so happy thoughts, eventual smut, not necessarily HEA though, that's what the sequel is for, random side character death, Auror George, Head Auror Harry, Muggle Relations Hermione
Summary: During one night mission, George runs into a Death Eater who doesn't kill him when she has the chance. In fact, she also seems to be rescuing the kids. He can't stop thinking about her, wondering who she is and what all of it means, but will he be able to convince the Auror department--and most importantly, Harry--that he's not losing his mind? Something's different about this case and about this woman, like he knows there's a piece of the puzzle missing. He just has to find it. As always, starring Florence Pugh as Claire and Saoirse Ronan as Lia.
Updated on Mondays!
Read on AO3 or below!
Chapter 3
Claire.
The name echoed over and over in his head for what seemed like hours. The other two kids they got interviews from all said the same thing. It drove him mad, even after moving from the chair he’d plopped himself down in after dinner with a glass of whiskey to the bed. Every time he closed his eyes, he’d see her mask. Her eyes. They’d been green. Not like Harry’s, though. Softer. And shocked, like she couldn’t believe she’d been caught. And her voice. The few words she’d said were on repeat, a sense of familiarity he couldn’t place. Maybe she just reminded him of someone he went to school with. Or if she was their age, maybe he had gone to school with her. Maybe he'd seen her in the Great Hall or passed her in a corridor.
He turned his pillow over, resting his face on the cool side and closing his eyes again, but she was still there. Staring.
Claire. Whoever she was, George knew he had to find her.
The alleyway he found himself in was nearly pitch black. Or was it an alleyway? The lack of light and uneven floors made it difficult to tell, but the heavy box in his hand didn’t help. It was from the store. Or for the store. He didn’t know which, but the only way to walk was forward, further into the alley. Further into the dark. It certainly was a long alley, and nothing lingered in the distance. No destination. He had no idea how long he’d been walking when he noticed a glint of something on the wall. A door! George tried to sprint, but his legs wouldn’t move any faster than a walk. When he reached it, though, his heart sank; it wasn’t a door at all. It was a full-length mirror, and when he stepped in front of it, it wasn’t himself he saw in it.
It was Fred, who looked just as surprised to see George as George was to see him. Except... Fred was holding the box, too. Just like him. When George turned his head, so did Fred. When he moved to the side, Fred did, too. A mirror in every other sense of the word, which is why it shocked him so much when a figure came through the wall. A woman in a dark hooded cloak with green eyes.
George turned, grabbing his wand for defense and dropping the box in the process, but the woman was gone and he could feel movement at his feet. Looking down, he could just barely make out a dozen cobras slithering out of the box and into the dark.
The sound of his alarm jerked him awake, pulling him from the alley and back into his bedroom, where he could feel sweat beading on his forehead. He hadn’t had a nightmare like that in a while, and tears sprung to his eyes at the memory of Fred in the mirror. He hadn’t looked happy; he’d looked confused. And even though it had just been a dream, he couldn’t help but worry. Death wasn’t necessarily black and white in the Magical World, even if he had seen it happen. Even if he’d seen the flash of tell-tale green light, then Fred on the ground, eyes staring up at the stars above them. All George could do was close them in the split second between curses. Maybe he was stuck. Maybe he could—
I’m not stuck, Georgie. Come on. You know better than that.
Sometimes Fred’s voice would come to him when he wasn’t thinking clearly. The first time it had happened, it nearly gave him a heart attack. Now, it was comforting. Like a squeeze on the shoulder—or, when it was a crisis, a slap in the face. It always hurt, hearing it when he knew it was just in his head, but if anyone was going to bring him back to reality, it was his twin.
Still, in a world where very few things seemed impossible, death was always inevitable. Sure he could bring some version of Fred back if he made enough friends with the Unspeakables, but he didn’t want that. Fred wouldn’t want that. It wasn’t a solution, no matter how much he wished it was.
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms until colors dotted his vision, then forced his eyes back open and his feet off the side of the bed, elbows on his knees and his head back in his hands. It didn’t feel like he’d actually gotten any sleep at all, which meant he’d need extra coffee to get through the day. The dark circles under his eyes seemed to etching further and further into his skin as he looked at himself in the mirror while he was brushing his teeth, eyes threatening to close even then. Eventually, though, he forced himself out the door and stopped by the Leaky for a breakfast sandwich and the largest coffee they had.
“Mornin’, Weasley! Been a few weeks, eh?” the man behind the counter said as George walked up. It was Marcus today. They’d started serving small breakfasts in the last couple months, which had been extremely helpful for the mornings he woke up late and didn’t want to scavenge at the office.
“Yeah, it’s been kind of mad lately. I felt like I haven’t really been home.”
“Well, it’s good to see you,” he said as he started making the order without George even having to tell him. “Saw the news about St. Mungo’s in the paper this morning.”
George furrowed his eyebrows as he pulled out his wallet. “What news?”
“Oh, that recent, huh?”
“Yeah, we don’t usually get news until we get over there and brief. Not unless it’s an emergency. What’s going on?”
“Someone’s been stealing supplies.”
“Seriously?!”
“Yeah. What kind of person does something like that?”
George quirked an eyebrow. “Someone desperate, usually. Doesn’t mean it needs to go on, obviously, but we’ve found that it’s likely a last resort. It’s not the first time, but we’d rather find a way to help them if we can.”
“That’s good of you. Here,” he handed over the sandwich and the coffee. “This one’s on us for all you do. The whole team. And I threw in an extra coffee for Mr. Potter too.”
George smiled. “Thanks, Marcus. We appreciate you, too. Can’t go out catching all the bad guys on an empty stomach, now can I?”
“Sure can’t, Weasley. Good luck today.”
“Will do, mate!” he called as he walked back out onto the street, taking a slow sip of coffee as he thought about Marcus’s words. Occasionally they’d get calls for patients “stealing” items that ended up being a waste of time, but if it was in the Prophet, it was most likely an outsider. And if it was an outsider, Harry probably already knew about it.
Sure enough, when he got to the office, it was already buzzing. He had to pull the coffees closer to his chest in order to not spill them on the way to Harry’s office. When he got there, though, they weren’t alone. Hermione turned around with a grin. “Speak of the devil.”
“Do you two always talk about me behind my back?”
“Of course,” Hermione teased at the same time Harry said, “No!”
George just raised an eyebrow playfully.
“Just figured you might be in here this morning. I assume you heard the news.”
“About St. Mungo’s? And if you’re telling me, then—"
“It’s related. Or... potentially. It’s weird. So apparently, the employees can’t seem to remember most of their shift last night.”
“Another case of Obliviation?”
“Sure looks like it.”
“It’s almost too obvious,” George mused.
Harry nodded. “I agree. But it’s a lead. If they want us to find them, there’s a reason, and so...”
“So we’ll find them.”
A couple of hours later, Harry and George stepped through the brick wall to St. Mungo’s, being careful not to get in the way of the hospital workers shuffling back and forth down the halls as they were ushered in. They’d sent an owl to the head of security there, who showed them to the stockroom, where the Healer in charge the previous evening was helping her team make the restock orders.
“Miss Briggs?” Harry asked her, and she turned around with a smile. She was young, a little younger than the two of them, even, and she looked exhausted, auburn curls pulled back in a bun.
“Yes! Hi! Hi, good morning. Thank you for coming over so soon.”
“Of course. We want to get this settled as quickly as possible. We know how important you all are here.”
While she and Harry were talking, George surveyed the room. There didn’t seem to be any sign of forced entry, though they’d seen that before. The problem with magic was that things were easy to erase. A quick Reparo could disguise a break-in, but as an Auror, he’d learned to look for signs. Spells couldn’t turn back time.
“’Scuse me,” he tapped the nearest person in scrubs on the shoulder. It was a teenager, his hair a mess on the top of his head like he’d just rolled out of bed.
“Yes, sir?”
“Do we know where the person came in? Was anything broken?”
“No, nothing broken, sir.” He shook his head, pointing to the door. “Looks like whoever it was came in through the door, but security doesn’t remember seeing anyone. They said they remember coming in for the shift and everything going fine, then the next thing they know, they’re on the floor and everything’s gone.”
“And how many guards were here?”
“Three, sir.”
“And all three of them experienced the same thing?”
“Yes, sir. They’re on the fourth floor being checked out right now to see if they can try to reverse the Obliviation.”
“That’s what happened for sure, right?”
“That’s what we’re thinking. Yes, sir.”
“Right. Thank you. Can I take a look at the door?”
“Of course, sir. Whatever you need.”
Harry was still taking notes on what exactly was missing, so George walked carefully over to the door to the stockroom, running his fingers over the wood. When they’d fixed up the castle after the battle at Hogwarts, he’d noticed a shift in the walls. Some say it was just the negative energy coming from the students, or from the fighting that had made an impression in the air, lingering like a bad odor. But George knew better. He felt the splinters in the wood, the chips in the stone, the reality that even though on the outside, repaired things looked like they’d never broken, they had. They were. No matter how many times a person was fixed, dressed up, painted over, patched up, they’d never be the same person they were before. He still had splinters. He still had chips. That’s what happened when someone lost part of themselves.
He and Harry had gotten exceptionally closer immediately following the war. Harry knew, on some level, what George felt like. When Harry died, he’d lost part of his soul. The Voldemort part, but a part nonetheless. He could empathize with George’s feeling of emptiness, of longing, of searching. Darkness. He was the only one who could see the ache in his muscles, the anger etched between his brows, the bags under his eyes from going days with only a handful of hours of sleep, existing on caffeine and pity. They hadn’t talked, but they didn’t need to. Later, Harry had expressed how much he appreciated those days where he could spend time with someone who wouldn’t ask questions or bombard him with cameras or quills or well wishes.
It was nearly eight months before he’d picked up a broom again, courtesy of Harry himself. He’d insisted that it helped, and George was desperate. He’d straddled the broom and bolted up, wondering how high he could get, how close he could get to his brother. How high in the sky had his soul traveled? He remembered the chill in the air, the sting of the wind and how good it felt on his cheeks. Pain on his skin instead of in his heart. It wasn’t until he was shivering, freezing vapor from the low clouds coating his skin in droplets of ice, that he stopped. Then, briefly, looked down towards the ground. Wondered what it would feel like to fall.
So he dove in a tight spiral, plummeting towards the ground below him, only pulling up when he knew he had no other choice. He didn’t even realize he was crying until his feet were on the ground, legs shaking with adrenaline, the wetness pooling on his chin warm instead of cold. He heaved in a breath, and suddenly, for the first time in eight months, he felt like he could fully fill his lungs again. That he knew he had to keep on breathing. Keep on fighting. Keep on aching.
Because if anyone had to stick around to honor Fred’s memory, it was George.
The wood of the door felt just as solid as the wood of the broom had. Just as grounding, and George closed his eyes. There had to be something. Some kind of clue. Some kind of trail. If Harry was right, if whoever was doing this wanted to be found, something would be left intentionally. He wasn’t as experienced in this part of the investigation. George enjoyed making arrests first and asking questions later, but he could have patience now, for this. Nothing indicated a break or a curse. No scars.
“Is it possible that someone Apparated in here?” George asked no one in particular. He didn’t necessarily expect an answer, but the same boy from before spoke again, clearly having been watching him.
“No, sir. St. Mungo’s employee halls are warded against Apparation.”
“Just the employee halls?”
“Yes, sir.” He pulled his clipboard a little closer to his chest. “You can Apparate into the lobby. We keep that open for emergencies, of course. But no one can get past there unless you get admitted.”
George licked his lips, eyes glancing to Harry. The head Healer was still talking his ear off, so he figured he’d kill two birds with one stone. “Harry,” he said, voice a little louder than usual as he made his way over and tapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry. Silly question, Miss Briggs, but your incredibly helpful colleague,” he pointed to the boy, who turned a slight shade of pink, “mentioned something about not being able to get past the lobby unless you’re admitted in?”
The woman nodded turning to George, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harry’s shoulders sag with relief. “That’s right! We’ve crossed checked the admissions list with all of our current patients, and everyone’s accounted for.”
“Anyone get discharged last night? Maybe someone snuck out of their room, took what they wanted before they left?” He knew that wasn’t the case. He knew they wouldn’t call the Aurors if they hadn’t already ruled that out. It wouldn’t be in the Prophet.
“Based on the time, we don’t believe so. During the time of the break-in, no one had been recently discharged.”
George nodded, taking a breath. “Any chance I can take a look at that sign in sheet?”
Just as his fingers bushed over the door, they slid over the semi-rough surface of the parchment, looking for any indents, any indication that it had been tampered with. But there was nothing. No quill marks where there shouldn’t be, nothing torn. They had assured him it had been checked, but something stuck out.
“We’ve spoken to all the Healers who worked the desk, Mr. Weasley. None of them remember anyone coming in here and not signing the sheet.”
A common explanation, sure, but the words were still there. None of them remember. It could be nothing, but he had to be sure.
“Revelio.” The once immaculate parchment began to distort, the names shimmering as the ink swirled, bleeding through the fibers to settle into the previously blank slot on the bottom, under the last guest of the day, at 2:35 am.
Michael Summers.
In small practiced script was the name of the boy they had interviewed the day before. They told the staff they’d look into Michael Summers as to not get them too nervous that a Death Eater had been the one to infiltrate, then immediately headed back to the Ministry to debrief. George was speechless, running a hand through his hair as he tried to think of what to do. She’d been there, where he’d stood, where he’d walked. Somehow she’d managed to get into the hospital, past the guards, wipe their memories and stealing supplies, then walk away unscathed and with no consequences.
“What did she take?” were the first words out of George’s mouth as soon as the door closed to Harry’s office.
“Basic supplies. Dittany, burn paste, mandrake root, and a few potions. Nothing major, and not a lot. I think it was just more of a shock than anything.”
“Harry, a Death Eater was at St. Mungo's. Surely someone had to have seen her."
"Not if she wasn't dressed like a Death Eater," Harry said softly, plopping down into his chair and leaning back, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes. "I bet she went in with a disguise, wrote down a fake name, told them she was a visitor, then knocked out the guards, took what she needed, Obliviated everyone, and Apparated out before anyone noticed."
"But she's being so..."
"Unnecessarily non-violent?"
"Something like that. Just... going in, getting what she needed, and leaving. It's not very Death Eater-like."
"Which is why it's extra suspicious. But it fits our theory that she definitely wants us to find her."
George's heart quickened at the thought. If they pulled this off, whatever this was. "So let's find her."
In less than an hour, two DMLE officers were stationed at each entrance to St. Mungo's with twenty-four hour patrol. It had been a pain to get them there, and Kingsley almost didn't approve of the use of manpower, but Harry had insisted that it was necessary, that she was too powerful to have them let their guard down, and that someone with her skills needed to be apprehended. He found himself staring at forms and paperwork, glad he didn’t have much else to work on. The distraction would be nice, but he wouldn't be able to concentrate. No mission had ever felt like this before, and it was maddening. The stakes had never felt so high.
"Hey... mate?" He didn't know how long Harry had been standing in the door two days later, watching him tap his quill against the side of the folder, leg bouncing anxiously. He stopped as soon as he looked up.
"Yeah? Sorry. Just... spacing out a bit."
"Why don't you head out early tonight, yeah? Try to relax. Get some rest."
"Harry, I—"
"I know. Me too. But until something happens, there's not much else we can do. We'll find her, alright? Don't worry. Maybe go out to that bar you've been meaning to hit up. Find a girl to get your mind off this one."
George scoffed, but set the quill down and rubbed his eyes. He doubted he'd be able to pay attention to anyone that wasn't Claire, but Harry seemed insistent, and he didn't want to be rude. "Yeah, sure," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow."
He didn't, of course, go to the bar, not wanting to drink in case he had to be called away. Instead, he found himself heading through the front door of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. As stressful as it was to manage sometimes, when it was quiet, like it tended to be right before closing, it was grounding. Comforting. Full of memories of him and Fred setting it up and planning it out. The day they got the blueprints and rolled them out over the kitchen table for the first time was one of the best moments of his life. The second was when they walked through the front door for the first time.
The tinkling of the chimes still made him smile. It had been last thing they'd hung up once the shelves had been filled and labeled, floors swept, and the stock and office doors locked. The final touch before they flipped the sign to Open. It was the last time the store had been completely stocked.
"Hey!" Ron said, a grin coming over his face as George walked in. He'd been stocking the portable swamps with extra care, which George was appreciative of. "You never come in through the front door," he teased. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah. I just like to hear the chimes every once in a while." Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a basket of their individually-wrapped edible Dark Marks. The recipe had changed a bit over the years, as had the switch from lollipop to gummy, but they kept selling, even now, when he realized some of the children who picked them up probably barely even knew what they were. George plucked the top one, eyeing it for a second, turning it over in his hand before opening it and taking a bite, cringing at the initial black licorice taste. It would fade, he knew, to green apple, Fred's favorite. Still a bit sour, since they were Dark Marks after all, but wonderfully delicious to those who could stick it out. He wondered for a moment if Claire was the same way, then shook his head. He was trying to not think about her.
Ron went back to stocking, clearly realizing that George wasn't there to talk, but he needed to. He needed to apologize. Ron was good. He knew what he was doing; that didn't mean he wouldn't fuck up every once in a while. He and Fred had to make loads of mistakes before they'd finally gotten the hang of it, and he'd had to pass what he knew onto Ron. And Ron, he had to remind himself, wasn't Fred. Of course he wasn't, but every once in a while, seeing a tuft of red hair over a shelf made his heart ache. He finished off the Dark Mark and took a deep breath.
"Ron?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry. About the other night. I shouldn't have taken it out on you like I did."
Ron nodded, setting the box down on the floor. "And I should have been more careful. It's my fault. If I hadn't tried to rush out—"
"You shouldn't have, and I hope you see what can happen when we rush things around here. But I don't want you to feel like... like you can't do this. Because you can, Ron. You've been brilliant, honestly. And I really appreciate all your help and everything you've done. I've just been feeling a little out of it lately, and it wasn't right to take that out on you."
He knew Ron had been apprehensive about the offer, and one of the reasons he'd made it was because he could tell his brother had been stuck, hopping between careers and jobs, trying to figure out what he wanted to do and who he wanted to be. He'd expressed it a couple times to George that he might be interested in helping him with the store if he ever needed it, but as time went on, it was clear that George was in no way fit to keep it up by himself, even with all of Lee's help. It wasn't an easy decision to hand it over, but it was much easier to hand it over to Ron than it would be to some stranger. At least this way, he could visit whenever he wanted. He couldn't give it up entirely; at least the Weasley part had to stay.
"Thanks, George. I... yeah, I feel like I really needed to hear that." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Katie's been having a rough couple of weeks."
He never thought Ron, out of all the Weasley kids, would be the first to have a baby with someone they weren't married to, but there was a first time for everything, right? They'd made the announcement to the family a little over a month ago. It hadn't exactly been planned, but they weren't in any rush to get officially married, and George understood. If he wanted to spend the rest of his life with someone, what difference did a piece of paper and a name change make? Their mother, on the other hand, had been the first to express her disapproval only because they weren't married, but she was congratulatory all the same. Anyone with eyes could see that Ron and Katie weren't going to be separating anytime soon, and he was happy for them. Plus, another baby on the way took the pressure off the rest of them.
“Sorry to hear that,” he replied honestly. “Is there anything I can do?”
Ron rubbed his eyes. “I dunno. I feel like she’s been up all hours of the night trying to get comfortable. The healers are hoping that it’ll only be a couple more weeks of the vomiting, at least. She keeps complaining about being tired, too, but bloody hell, she’s growing a whole person in there. Of course she’s gonna be tired.” He chuckled. “Mum’s dinners are really her highlight of the week right now.”
“She’s still coaching?”
“A lot less, but yeah. She doesn’t want to give it up entirely, so she’s capping herself about a meter off the ground, just to be safe. Plus, Hogwarts, of course, is waiting until the very last minute to find a replacement, but she’s stubborn enough to be alright with it.”
“What about you?”
Ron paused, then smiled sheepishly. “I’m fine with her doing what she feels is best for her body, you know? She’s good at being busy, so I imagine she’ll stay that way as long as she can. I’m just here to make it as easier for her in whatever way that might be. I’m... really excited, George. Honestly.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I know at first I said I was nervous, and I kind of still am, but... every time I look at her I just... think about how much I love her and how that’s turned into a whole baby.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all sappy.”
“It’s fine,” George said with a smile. “I’m glad the two of you finally came around to actually admitting you had a crush on each other.”
“Shut up,” Ron smirked. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“That’s the problem, actually. I don’t. Harry sent me home.”
“Everything okay?”
George took a deep breath. “No,” he admitted before he could help it. “No, it’s not. She’s driving me crazy.”
“That girl?”
That girl. For some reason, George bristled. Ron had said it like the woman consuming his thoughts meant nothing, like she was just another person on the street he passed by on his way to work. But if he said all that, Ron would think he was mad.
“Yeah.” He grabbed the closest thing off the shelf next to him, fidgeting with the box.
A few seconds of heavy silence filled the small shop, like Ron could hear everything George wasn’t willing to say, feel everything he wasn’t actually allowed to talk about, before he went to the front door and flipped the sign to Closed. It took George by surprise. Ron tilted his head towards the street outside.
“Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.”
It had been years since he and Ron had spend a night at a pub by themselves, but it was nice. They just... talked. George told Ron what he could about what was going on with the case, because if Claire was able to track them down, surely she could find his shop without any effort. Ron, surprisingly, just seemed to want to be there to listen. He didn’t pass judgment when after a couple beers, George let it slip that he felt some type of connection to her, whatever it could be, and he didn’t want to ignore it.
“Then don’t,” Ron said softly, sipping at his own beer. “Stranger things have happened, mate. It doesn’t have to mean anything other than you being excited about a mission, because from what you’ve said, this is the most exciting mission you’ve ever had.”
It was. George had thought about that, too. With the lull in the last five years, big missions like this were few and far between, much less such a multi-day hunt that included Muggles, multiple locations, and a single woman that seemed to be in the forefront of it all. Maybe it was just his subconscious trying to solve the mystery. He was going to go with that, for the sake of his sanity.
“We’re really close, too, you know? And I think that’s part of it. The anxiety. But it’s anxiety around Death Eaters and that just feels like...” he trailed off, knowing Ron would understand. He did, and nodded. “It can’t happen again.”
“It won’t. Between you and Harry, you’ll get this figured out. You’ll catch them.”
George took a deep breath, finishing off his drink and running a hand through his hair. It was his limit anyway; he had prefaced Ron at the beginning of the night that he was capping himself at three beers just in case he had to get called away, and Ron had done the same, since he was on dinner duty tonight and they didn’t want a trip to St. Mungo’s if they didn’t need it. He bid Ron a goodnight and stepped out into the humid air. Compared to the stuffy pub, it was kind of refreshing. He took the opportunity to walk home, since they weren’t far. It was a Muggle pub they’d gone to, just so that no one could eavesdrop in on their conversation, but the walk back to the shop was only about twenty minutes. Even though he’d taken the night off, he couldn’t help but be on edge, even in Muggle territory. They weren’t anywhere near the villages that had been attacked, but every movement made him tense, every swish of black fabric made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and he’d never been more eager to get home.
He’d had no nightmares, but on his desk the following morning was a letter from the DMLE summoning him to their holding rooms. George’s heartbeat skyrocketed and he contemplated Apparating down there, but figured that might set off some alarms. They didn’t normally Apparate in the building except in cases of extreme emergency, and this clearly was not, as they had someone in custody that they’d caught snooping around St. Mungo’s. She hadn’t seemed surprised to see the Aurors, but she hadn’t taken their questioning well, gotten defensive, pulled out her wand, and they’d immediately brought her in. Unsure of her threat level, but that never meant anything; they just couldn’t put important information in a memo that might circulate the whole office.
Harry, of course, was already there when he walked into the office, leaning against the desk and looking at the report in one hand while holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee in the other. He looked up and raised the file with a smirk. “It’s your small, scary British woman. Claire Montague,” he said, and the name sent a shiver down George’s spine, like it was supposed to mean something to him, but he couldn’t place it. “Doesn’t look like she lied about her name, but she was born Clarissa and if we’re being honest, I would have changed my name, too. Looks like her dad was killed in the second war—doesn’t say by who—and her mum’s currently on the run. Location unknown. Maybe she was ashamed of her husband and took the opportunity after he died to start a new life without anyone tying her down... including her Death Eater daughter.” He handed the folder over to George like Christmas morning had come early. “They’re bringing her into interrogation now.”
She was 26, Pureblood, had been in their year at Hogwarts—Slytherin, of course, which made him being unable to place her stranger considering they had most of their classes with the Slytherins—but they didn’t have any information on her after fifth year, like she’d fallen off the face of the planet. Here she was, though. About to be behind the door leading into the next room. Maybe, finally, he’d be able to get some damn answers.
“You ready to go in?” Harry asked.
“What? Me?”
“You’re taking the lead on this case, George. Only you know what it is that you want to find out. Get what you can from her and just let us know what we need to do. Since she’s not considered a threat at the moment because they didn’t actually catch her stealing anything and it’s not a crime to be acting strange, this one’s off the record.” He adjusted his glasses, clearing his throat. “Well... I told them she wasn’t a threat. Probably. So don’t fuck up the opportunity, alright? If you get stuck in there, just yell. It's soundproof but not if you're loud enough, I'm sure.”
George laughed. Harry had been witness to many interrogations, but this was the first he’d let George do by himself, which meant he trusted George to get enough information on his own. It meant a lot, but he couldn’t think about it too much, because one of the DMLE officers walked in, sighing with relief as he closed the door behind him. “She’s all yours. Good luck. Feisty.”
Harry patted George on the back. “Well, go on.”
“Go on, he says,” George muttered. “Like it’s a bloody coffee shop.”
He didn’t understand why the interrogation room always had to be so cold, but it didn’t help his nerves as he stepped in and set his wand on the table to lessen his own threat to her. Even with his back to her, he could feel her eyes boring holes into his coat. But he couldn’t look weak. Not for her. He squared his shoulders, took a breath, and turned to look Claire Montague in the eyes once again.
She was leaning as far back as she could in the chair, wrists cuffed to the table as her legs stretched out underneath it, like she was trying to take up as much space as possible despite her small frame. Her short blonde hair fell almost to her shoulders, a little untidy—George assumed from fighting the officers—and the street clothes she was wearing looked a bit big on her, like she’d stolen them from someone before heading to St. Mungo’s. It made her look even smaller than George remembered. And he did remember, because her eyes were the same ones that had stared him down from behind a mask, the same way they were doing now, except now, there was a hint of a smirk on her face that made his stomach clench painfully, like he was lucky she didn’t have her wand. And George knew he was. When she spoke, her voice was low and steady as she tilted her head ever so slightly.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to catch me, Weasley.”
Title: Borrow the Moonlight
Rating: M
Pairing: George/Claire (OC)
Chapters: 3/17
Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Enemies with Benefits, but for real, George falls in love with a Death Eater, Background Harry/Hermione, Background Ron/Katie, Background Ginny/Lia, George is dealing with some not so happy thoughts, eventual smut, not necessarily HEA though, that's what the sequel is for, random side character death, Auror George, Head Auror Harry, Muggle Relations Hermione
Summary: During one night mission, George runs into a Death Eater who doesn't kill him when she has the chance. In fact, she also seems to be rescuing the kids. He can't stop thinking about her, wondering who she is and what all of it means, but will he be able to convince the Auror department--and most importantly, Harry--that he's not losing his mind? Something's different about this case and about this woman, like he knows there's a piece of the puzzle missing. He just has to find it. As always, starring Florence Pugh as Claire and Saoirse Ronan as Lia.
Updated on Mondays!
Read on AO3 or below!
Chapter 2
The knock on Harry’s door was a quiet but urgent one, no doubt that it was Hermione. He didn’t usually have his door closed, but a morning full of meetings and a very busy briefing had him longing for a moment to himself before lunch, which would entail a meeting with the Portkey Office to try to figure out the sudden spike in illegal Portkey activity. It was a conversation he’d put off for a couple weeks now, but it needed to be done and he needed to get it over with. First, because it meant they would stop sending twice daily memos to his office, but second, because it actually kind of was beginning to affect them as well, with people reporting accidental Portkeys more and more often. Just the other day, apparently there was a woman who had been walking her dog, stopped to pick up a bit of trash, and landed in the middle of a lake a county over.
“Come in,” Harry answered, leaning back in his chair and not trying to hide his exhaustion. He didn’t bother hiding anything from Hermione. As the door opened, he rubbed his temples, but then there was a styrofoam cup of coffee being set on his desk in front of him, and when he looked up, Hermione was smiling.
“Thought you might need that.”
“I do, thank you.” He’d managed his way through one coffee this morning, but it wasn’t enough. Of course Hermione would know. He still couldn’t get over the fact that she was going to be his wife. That somehow, he’d gotten lucky enough to get to be with her for the rest of his life.
After the war, they’d all taken a break to so some soul-searching, as Hermione had called it. Her relationship with Ron had ended amicably after less than a year, as had his short stint with Ginny. He was glad that the awkwardness around the breakups was a thing of the past and that they could all have dinner together again. It had been nearly two years later, at the second battle memorial service, when Hermione reached over to hold his hand, intertwining their fingers together. After everything was over and they were heading back to the Burrow, she pulled him aside before they could go in.
“Harry, I’ve been thinking,” she began, biting her lip with nerves. Her eyes were meeting his, and he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her like this. When he squeezed her hand in reassurance for whatever she was about to say, it was... sweaty. That was new.
“Yeah?”
“Well... I’ve been trying to talk to you for the past few weeks, it just... we’ve been busy, you know, which is fine, obviously. I just didn’t want to think that the only reason is because we’re both here and it’s an emotional day. Which it is, of course, but I’ve been thinking about it for weeks.”
“Hermione,” Harry said, trying to snap her out of the rambling. He couldn’t think of anything that had happened to cause her to be more stressed than usual, unless something during the memorial had brought back memories she hadn’t thought about since.
“Sorry, um...” She took a deep breath, gaze still cast on Harry’s feet. “I was wondering if you’d like to maybe get dinner with me tomorrow night.”
“Yeah, sure!” Harry answered immediately. It had been way too long since they’d been able to go to dinner together anyway. It had become another weekly tradition most of the time. “Where were you thinking?”
Hermione looked genuinely shocked that he agreed. “Oh! Um, well, I figured we could both go to our pizza place since we know we both like it.” She paused. “You really want to?”
“Why... would I not?” Harry raised an eyebrow, looking past her as if someone was standing there ready to jump out at him in some kind of prank. “We always used to go.”
“Oh,” she said again as her shoulders fell a fraction of an inch. “Well, of course, but I mean to ask if you... wanted to get dinner.”
“Yeah, I know! Tomorrow. That’s... that’s what you said. Dinner?”
“Dinner.”
“Why... I don’t understand.” Harry’s brows furrowed. What else could that possibly mean? Why wouldn’t he want to get dinner with her?
Hermione wrung her hands together. “Dinner.”
“Yes?”
“Right.”
“Dinner. Tomorrow night." For Merlin’s sake, now she was flushed. “Am I missing something?”
She was quiet for a couple seconds, then took a deep breath, letting it out with a frustrated huff. “I’m asking you out, Harry,” she finally said.
“Oh.” Well, that was a new development. He tried to think back through the past couple months, searching for any indication that Hermione had been interested in him and he’d just been too oblivious to notice. He’d never really thought about going out with her, really. Well... not much more than a fleeting wonder. Maybe a bit more than a fleeting wonder. A couple dreams here and there, but he couldn’t help that, right? Now that he was looking at her, though... Was he taking too long? Surely oh wasn’t a good answer. “It’s still a yes.”
“It is?”
“A hundred percent. I’d love to go to dinner with you.” It was only then he noticed that they were still holding hands, and he squeezed hers reassuringly. “I’d love to go out with you.”
A shy smile came over Hermione’s face, like she wasn’t entirely sure that she believed him but wasn’t about to say anything about it so she wouldn’t jinx it. “Okay. Brilliant.”
“Brilliant.”
"Bloody hell, that was rough,” Ron groaned from behind him. Hermione, shocked again, looked at Harry, then past him, where he now knew their friend was standing. “Even I’m not that thick, Harry. Everyone knows when a girl asks you to dinner, she means dinner.”
“What are you even doing out here, Ron?” He really was good at ruining a moment.
“You two were taking forever. I came out to see what the holdup was. Thought you might have seen something or were practicing a spell, not... whatever nonsense I just witnessed.”
For a moment, Harry couldn’t determine how Ron felt. It was weird, wasn’t it? Going out with his best friends ex-girlfriend? Then again, Hermione was his best friend, too. And Ron had started dating Katie nearly six months ago; there wasn’t any reason for him to be upset about Hermione pursuing other options. But the fact that her option was him had his face breaking out into a grin, too. When he looked back at Ron, he just rolled his eyes with a smile and said, “Food’s ready when you’re done snogging,” before walking back into the house, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
They hadn’t, for the record. Not then, anyway. But their first date had easily turned into a second, then into a third, then into them both wondering why they hadn’t just done this the whole time, because Harry felt so at home with Hermione already that it felt like nothing had changed.
And still, nothing had changed, because Hermione could read him like the back of her hand, sitting down in the chair on the other side of his desk and setting a folder report in front of him. “I took the liberty of pulling a few reports from that map you sent over, if you have a few minutes to go over everything.”
“For you? Always.”
Hermione smiled. “Cheeky. Just didn’t want you to be late.”
“No, I’ve got time. Promise. Did you find anything?”
“I did.” She watched as Harry flipped open the folder and scanned over the first report. It was the map with circled locations of the villages attacked and arrows indicating the direction of travel. Nothing new there. “So the second page is is the list of orphanages who’ve had an influx recently. I was able to get in touch with them to get more information, and apparently, none of the children have any recollection of how they got there or where they came from. All they know is that their families were killed in a horrible accident. Under each one is the list of all the names of the children who showed up in the last week.”
With a quick glance, Harry counted twelve. Twelve in a week. It made his chest ache. “What are the highlighted kids?” he asked, noticing the three that stood out, each from a different village.
“Those are ones that we have on record at the Ministry. Most likely Muggleborns, but they’re too young to have anything but trace accidental magic.”
“So they’re not looking for them specifically?”
“It doesn’t look like it, no. But I wrote down what I could gather from their profiles on the third page as well as the contact information for each orphanage. Address, phone number, coordinates, and who’s in charge in case you and George wanted to pay any of them a visit.”
“I honestly didn’t think I could love you any more,” Harry grinned, standing to move to the other side of the desk to kiss her. She just smiled into it, resting a hand on his jaw. “This is above and beyond, Hermione. Thank you.”
“Think it’ll get me a raise?”
“If I was in charge of your salary, you’d make however much you wanted.”
“Only because you’re about to get half of it,” she teased against his lips.
“And you’re about to get half of mine. So no complaining.” Harry smirked, pressing another quick kiss to her lips before pulling back. “I’ll let George know, though. He’ll be thrilled.”
Hermione took a deep breath, eyes downcast to her lap for a moment. “Is he... doing okay?”
“What do you mean?” he asked with a frown.
“This just seems like a mission that might not end the way I think he wants it to, that’s all. I don’t want him to be disappointed.”
Sitting back down in his chair, Harry couldn’t help but rub his scar. Of course, in their line of work, not every mission turned out well. In fact, most of them didn’t. Not for everyone. “I’m worried about that, too,” he admitted. “But I haven’t seen George this focused on anything since he sold the store to Ron. I mean, he enjoys his job and you know I try to give him the missions I think he’ll have fun with when I can. This one means something to him, Hermione. Even if I can't figure out why, I don't want to take that away from him.”
“I know,” she muttered. “I think it’s great for him, but that’s partially why I worry so much. I don’t want him to get his hopes up.”
“Unfortunately, I think he already has.” Harry sighed. “But, honestly, so have I. I know Draco’s situation wasn’t perfect, and clearly whoever this woman is is much worse, but think about it. A Death Eater not killing an Auror? Why would that happen if it’s not something weird?”
“I don’t know, Harry. Plenty of things could have gone wrong. And we can’t be sure that she wasn’t under the Imperius Curse or something. It’s not necessarily intentional. Not to say that what information he got wasn’t important, about the children, because it’s good to investigate that, but if this ends up being some wild goose chase—”
“That's what I told him. But surely if the kids weren't important, they'd have killed them too, right?” Harry finally took a sip of his coffee, which was still warm—Hermione must have put a temperature stabilization charm on it.
“I don’t know. I just want you to be careful, okay?”
“I always am.”
“Harry, you’re never careful,” she laughed. “And I know you’re excited about this one, too, but if it comes down to it, you have to think of yourself as George’s boss, too. Not just his friend. This girl might be dangerous, and none of us want him getting hurt.”
“No, I know we don’t. But maybe it’ll help him take his mind off things.”
“Things?”
“I... get the sense he’s not particularly thrilled about all the weddings that are about to go on.”
“He’s told you?”
“Not directly.” Hermione raised an eyebrow. “He just doesn’t like when we bring it up. I mean, he usually ends up finding something else to do.”
“He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s upset.” She sighed, rubbing her forehead in a way reminiscent of how Harry rubbed his scar. It was funny which habits of his she’d picked up over the years. “I know he can take care of himself and he’s an adult, but... it’s nice to have someone.”
Harry reached across the desk to take Hermione’s hand, lacing their fingers together before pulling hers up to kiss the back of it. “It is. And he will. I know he will. She’s just... you know... taking her time.”
Hermione couldn’t help but laugh. “When did you become such an optimist, Harry?”
“It’s easy when things keep going your way.”
-----------------------------------
Most of the time, George liked the quiet solitude of his flat. It gave him a break from the noise—both literal and mental—and allowed himself to just exist. He didn’t have to be an Auror, a friend, a brother, a son. He just got to be George... once he figured out who exactly George was. For his whole life, his identity had been tied to Fred, and even though he’d been gone for seven years, some nights George felt like it would take a lifetime to feel normal again. He oftentimes wondered what Fred would be doing, if they’d still be living together, if they’d be running the shop downstairs, where Ron currently was. George was lucky to have avoided him; in about an hour, Ron would close up and head back to his own flat that he shared with Katie, George would make himself dinner, take a walk around an empty Diagon Alley, then go to bed and do it all again the following day.
It was routine, no matter how much of a miserable one it was.
He was considering pouring himself a drink when he heard a commotion downstairs, then a clatter, then silence. That was never good. George sat the glass down on the counter with a groan and slid the key from its hook next to the door to the shop, unlocking it and heading down the stairs. He knew he didn’t have to go—he trusted Ron—but it was still half his.
The sight that greeted him had his nails digging into his palms in order to keep himself from strangling his brother. A couple years ago, they’d started selling literal popcorn. It looked unassuming, but when exposed to flame, instead of making a snack, it shot glitter and a small drops of foul-smelling potion into the room. While one of them would be less than an annoyance, George sold them in packs of 50. It had become one of the more popular products, especially at the end of the school year and into the summer, but the drawback was that storage needed to be very precise, considering some other products were rigged with fireworks or other types of explosives. He’d been especially sure to mention this to Ron.
And here he was now, in a shop covered in glitter and smelling like something that had just come out of the toilet. It could easily be cleaned up—that wasn’t the issue—but the two full boxes of wasted product...
"Ron—"
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I didn’t... I... shit.” He pulled his shirt up over his nose and waved his wand quickly, and the mess was vanished, only leaving the empty boxes that spilled out onto the floor.
“What the hell were you thinking, Ron? That’s hundreds of galleons wasted—"
“I know! I said I’m sorry. What more do you want?”
“You know better than that. What happened?”
Ron paused his cleanup of the boxes, looking at George warily. “What do you mean?”
“You know better than that,” George repeated. “So what happened?”
“I...” Ron shook his head. “I just wasn’t paying attention. I was in a hurry to get out of here tonight and I misread the labels. That’s it.”
He was lying. George knew he was lying. Ron never made eye contact when he wasn’t telling the truth, and he was currently looking everywhere but George. It was maddening. He’d given the store to Ron because he could trust him, and here he was lying. Would he have even told George what happened if he hadn’t been here to see it himself? Probably not. But George would have seen it in the missing inventory and questioned him about it. Ron would have made up some excuse. And they’d be in the same boat. Sometimes he regretted giving up the store, but he knew it didn't feel right without Fred. Nothing had, really. And at this point, he was starting to wonder if anything ever would.
He took a deep breath, trying his best to stay calm. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it sure felt close to the cherry on top. “Well don’t be in a hurry next time.” Before he could say anything worse, he turned around and stormed back up the stairs, nearly slamming the door behind him.
Then everything was quiet again. He did pour himself a drink in an attempt to quiet the rage still simmering in his mind. Then another. Then another, until he didn’t worry about Ron, or about the fact that he felt like he wouldn’t amount to anything, or that he was going to sleep alone once again. All he had to worry about was taking down those Death Eaters. And catching that woman.
-----------------------------------
“So how was Wednesday dinner?” Aurelia said cheerily as soon as she sat down next to him for the briefing the following morning. George couldn’t help but give her a soft smile. He’d been looking forward to this conversation, for the chance to prove himself right, even if that meant another dinner he wouldn’t get anything out of.
“Wonderful, actually. Gin stayed until nearly ten.”
“What!? You’re joking.”
“I’m not! Apparently they got it all out of their system before they got there, which I also didn’t really need to know, but Lia loves reminding me just so I don’t get too comfortable anytime we’re together.” And really, why was it just him? She never talked about Ginny to any of the others. Just him. Bitch. Respectfully.
“That’s why you should start inviting me around,” she teased. “So she won’t say anything inappropriate.”
It was an intriguing thought, but he’d hate to give Aurelia the wrong idea, and he’d have even more to give his parents the wrong idea. “Maybe one day.”
It was clear even she knew he didn’t mean it. “Guess that means I owe you dinner, then. Or... we don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. Looks like you’ll be busy for the next few days anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
She nodded towards the briefing board that he hadn’t even bothered to look at yet. Harry and George were paired together until the middle of the following week. George’s heart sped up; that had to mean good news for their case, right? Hermione had found something. And by the looks of it, something important.
“What is it you’re working on again?”
George paused, unsure of how much information he was willing to give away. He didn’t want to jeopardize the case by talking about it too much. “Death Eater stuff. We’re looking into a certain group that seems to be targeting Muggle villages, but otherwise not making much of a mess anywhere else.”
“Oh! That’s... an interesting motive.”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
“Alright!” Harry announced as he came into the room. “Now that everyone’s had at least a little bit of coffee, let’s go ahead and get started.”
Harry never took a lot of time to go over the day’s assignments, but it seemed like he was extra eager to get started, which made George extra eager to get started. “George, my office please,” he said, the pinnacle of professionalism that he knew would drop as soon as they were alone. “I’ve got everything we need. Lots of developments thanks to Hermione.”
“A lot of things are thanks to Hermione,” George replied with a smirk, but after the night he had, he needed some good news. He bid goodbye to Aurelia and followed Harry, already feeling more at home with the prospect of some sense of purpose, who was already smiling by the time they reached his office and Harry closed the door behind them.
“How do you feel about field trips?” Harry asked, handing George a file.
“Love them. Where are we going?”
“We’ve got some orphans to visit.”
“You found them?”
“Hermione found them,” Harry corrected. “I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to question them, since apparently they don’t remember anything except their names. Sounds like they’ve been Obliviated, but of course, we’ll confirm when we get there. It’s definitely a lead, though. And maybe we’ll get something out of them the Muggles didn’t bother to ask.”
“Always a good plan.”
“But first, I’m starving. If you haven’t eaten yet, I’ll get you breakfast.”
“Well, I’m not going to say no to a free meal.”
After they’d grabbed a couple of breakfast sandwiches from a local shop, they headed to the orphanage. They knocked on the door and after a few seconds, were greeted by a middle-aged women.
“Good morning!” she said, then squinted at their badges. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes, I’m Harry Potter and this is George Weasley. We’re—"
“Ah, the Aurors. Yes, we’ve been expecting you. Right this way.” She held the door open for them, nodding as they walked in, and led them to a small sitting area. “I’m Hannah. Would you like anything to drink? Tea? Water?”
“No, we’re fine, thank you. It’s... quiet in here.”
“They know you’re coming,” she chuckled. “Visitors tend to make all of them a little shy. My sister Nadia’s with them now—she’s who Miss Granger was speaking with.”
“So you know about magic, then?” George asked, and the woman smiled.
“We have to know about it,” she said, sitting down across from them. “Every once in a while, we get magical children, and it’s nice to know what to do with them when we need to. But your secret’s safe with us, don’t worry.”
Harry managed a flat smile. “It’s not every day you get Aurors in here then, I’m sure.”
“No, it’s not. But when Miss Granger contacted us after the influx the other night, we want to help. There’s a reason they don’t remember, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” Harry answered. “There’s a spell that can make you forget certain memories, and we’re thinking that’s what’s happened here. But we’re trying to find the people who attacked their village. Who killed their parents, and if we’re able to talk to them, we’re hoping we might get some answers. At least... see if there’s anything they can tell us.”
Hannah nodded. “Very well. Give me one moment and I’ll see who’s up for an interview.”
Once she was gone, George and Harry were silent. George didn’t really know what to say---he had so many questions that he wasn’t sure which to ask first, nor was he even sure which ones would even be answered. He’d known the Muggle and Wizarding World were closer than most people thought, that while they kept a statute of secrecy, certain things did have to cross over, especially on occasions like this, but being face-to-face with it was oddly sobering. He wondered how the Ministry determined who was trustworthy of it and how he was glad that if someone was going to be a good liason between those two worlds, it was Hermione. Muggle Relations had definitely been the right call for her, even if he and Harry did have to defend her positions sometimes. Unfortunately, even with Kingsley doing his best to make the necessary changes, a lot of the Wizarding World still had backwards ideas about who needed to be in charge.
Taking a look around the sitting area, George was pleased to feel almost like it was someone’s home. There were a couple of toy boxes against the walls, plush seating, bumpers on all the table corners, a stain or two on the carpet. He was tempted to clean it, but he was sure they’d notice. No need for them to worry about something like that when they’ve got kids moving in and out all the time. Harry was looking around curiously, too, jaw tight.
“You alright, mate?”
Harry shrugged. Of course he felt weird being here. This is where he could have ended up—where he should have ended up—instead of with the Dursleys. Maybe he could have been adopted by a magical family, where he would have grown up knowing all about magic and Hogwarts and spells. Then again, if he had, maybe he wouldn’t be here with George right now. It was funny to think about, how one small change could make all the difference.
Like if Fred had been one step further to the right—
“Alright, dear, this is Mister Potter and Mister Weasley. They’re just here to ask you some questions, remember?” Hannah slowly led a small blonde boy, maybe about six years old, through the door, hands on his shoulders as his eyes stayed on the floor.
“Are you police?” he asked, daring a glance towards Harry. “You don’t look like police.”
“We’re a... sort of police, yeah,” Harry answered. “We’re just here to try to figure out what happened to you.”
“I said, I don’t remember.”
“That’s okay. You don't have to. We're the puzzle solvers. What’s your name?”
“Michael Summers,” the boy answered shyly, but he untucked himself from Hannah's body.
“It’s nice to meet you, Michael. My name’s Harry. This is George.”
“I’m not in trouble, am I?”
George couldn’t help but chuckle. “No, of course not. Why would you be in trouble?”
“Mummy always said she’d tell the police on me if I misbehaved too much.”
“And have you?”
Michael shook his head.
“Well,” George assured him, “then you should be safe then, yeah? My mum told me the same thing when I was little, too.”
“Is that why you became one?”
A smirk raised one side of George’s mouth. “Kind of, yeah. Now I can’t get in trouble, see?”
“Do you remember anything about your mum?” Harry asked, pulling one of the toys out of the box—a set of blocks—and began putting them together. When Michael moved towards him to play, too, Harry nodded discreetly to Hannah, who silently stepped out of the room.
Michael’s eyebrows scrunched together. “I remember she... she was blonde, like me. She liked... she drank tea a lot. She would read me a bedtime story every night about a little boy and a dog. I always wanted a dog.” He was fidgeting with the blocks more than playing with them, turning them over in his hands and eyeing them carefully. “She’s not coming back for me, is she?”
Harry shared a look with George. One that he knew very well. “I’m afraid not,” Harry said softly. “I’m sorry, Michael. You know, I lost both of my parents when I was a baby. I don’t have proper memories of them like you do, but I remember how I felt when I was with them. I can always feel how much they loved me, and I keep that with me all the time. You’re going to have to do that too, now. It's one of those special things that comes from something sad.”
The boy took a few minutes to keep playing, then asked, “How did they die? Your mum and dad?”
“They were killed.”
“I think... I think mine were too.” George was amazed at how benevolent a memory charm seemed on a child who’d lost their parents. Though upset, Michael would live the rest of his life not knowing what it felt like to lose them them, without the grief and trauma, almost as if he’d been too young to remember while still keeping what little memories he’d been left with.
Harry nodded. “That’s what we think as well. We’re trying to find out who did it. Is there anything else you remember? Right before you got here?”
“There was a... a woman. In a mask. She told us she was trying to help us escape and get us somewhere safe so that we wouldn’t get hurt.”
George’s heart was racing. This is what he’d heard her say. She had saved them. She’d wiped this boy’s memories of his parents and what happened to them so he would be okay, then brought him to an orphanage so he could potentially have a better life. But why the children? Why were the children the only survivors? Surely that couldn’t just be a coincidence.
“Do you...” George spoke, then cleared his throat, realizing they’d almost forgot he was in there. “Do you remember her name? Did she tell you? The woman?”
The air was still in the small sitting room as Harry looked at him with partial annoyance. He knew he shouldn’t have asked yet. Maybe it was too early on in the interview, and maybe they wouldn’t get anything out of this boy if he became scared of his lack of memory, but it had been out of his mouth before he could even think. There was always a chance. And if this little boy didn’t know, maybe the next one would. If she was saving them, she had to get them to trust her somehow, especially if she was dressed like the people who were killing their families. The best way to do that was an introduction. Unless it had been a fake name, then they were still out of luck. But if she was wiping their memories anyway, what would it matter if they knew?
After what seemed like hours, the boy swallowed, then took a breath, looking up at George.
Title: Borrow the Moonlight
Rating: M Pairing: George/Claire (OC)
Chapters: 2/17
Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Enemies with Benefits, but for real, George falls in love with a Death Eater, Background Harry/Hermione, Background Ron/Katie, Background Ginny/Lia, George is dealing with some not so happy thoughts, eventual smut, not necessarily HEA though, that's what the sequel is for, random side character death, Auror George, Head Auror Harry, Muggle Relations Hermione
Summary: During one night mission, George runs into a Death Eater who doesn't kill him when she has the chance. In fact, she also seems to be rescuing the kids. He can't stop thinking about her, wondering who she is and what all of it means, but will he be able to convince the Auror department--and most importantly, Harry--that he's not losing his mind? Something's different about this case and about this woman, like he knows there's a piece of the puzzle missing. He just has to find it. As always, starring Florence Pugh as Claire and Saoirse Ronan as Lia. Updated on Mondays!
Read on AO3 or below!
Chapter 1
“And she just... what? Left?” Harry sat behind his desk, notebook in hand with barely anything written on it. George knew as Head Auror, Harry was supposed to consolidate and deliver the reports, then scan them for anything interesting in the team or any areas that needed to be focused on, but as soon as George walked in the following to a note on his desk to go see Harry in his office first thing, he knew it was just Harry being Harry. Nearly seven years post-graduation hadn’t changed him a bit.
“Yeah. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I honestly couldn’t even tell who she was working for.”
“But she had a Death Eater mask, right? I mean, we know they’re out there, trying to get their forces up again. “
“She’s different, though, mate. Something about her. Like... she’s not totally on their side. If she was…"
“She would have killed you. You’ve said.”
“Can we at least look into it?”
Harry sighed, carding a hand through his bangs to rub his scar. He’d grown his hair out after the battle, finding comfort in at least being able to hide his scar. George knew it was times like these, when he struggled with all that his position entailed, that he messed with it. But George wasn’t about to give up on this. He had a feeling, like he shouldn’t give up. He couldn’t. “Look into what, exactly? I can’t hand over resources to take a case after a...” he looked at George’s report with a half-smile, “small, scary, British woman. But... I can pull a map of the area, run a report for patterns, and see if there’s the possibility of it being the same group. If it is, we can perform a little more of an... in-depth investigation.”
“Really?” George’s smile widened.
“I’m not making any promises we’ll find anything, all right?”
“I know.”
“I could be sending the entire team on a wild goose chase.”
“I know.”
“But she’s clearly a Death Eater, right? And she was actively saving children, which doesn’t seem like something a Death Eater would do.”
“Exactly.”
“You couldn’t tell how old she was?”
“No.” George shook his head. “Hard to tell based off voice, but she wasn't older and she wasn't a kid. Maybe around our age? And she Apparated away with multiple people, so I think she’s been in it for a while. She’s got a lot of power.”
Harry nodded, pushing away from his desk. “I’m wondering if this is another Draco situation. The only question is why she’d still be in it. I mean, you saw it yourself—loads of Death Eaters turned themselves in after the war. Others, too.”
“Only because they thought it would reduce their sentence.”
Harry shrugged. “Either way. If she wanted to get out then, she would have.”
“Unless something's keeping her there. Or someone.”
“Bingo,” Harry pointed. “Let me keep this file, yeah? Do some digging and see what I can find.”
George’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Thanks, mate. I owe you one, really.” He didn’t even know himself why he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He even wondered what she was doing now, as he sat here across a desk from Harry. Were they planning their next attack? Were they recovering? He’d been too late, hadn’t gotten word of the call in time to prevent any casualties, but now, he was thankful that it was him and not one of the other Aurors. If he hadn’t been the one to respond, one of his friends might be dead instead of him being able to sit here and tell the tale.
“Don’t thank me yet. It won’t be easy to find someone based on a voice alone. But given that most of the Death Eaters tend to be men, maybe I can look in the database...” George knew Harry was just trying to talk through things, but he couldn’t help getting more excited the longer he talked. He knew why Kingsley had appointed him Head Auror even though he was one of the youngest—he definitely knew what he was doing. After seven years of solving mysteries, it was like Harry couldn’t stop. He’d joined right after graduation and had quickly moved up in the following years.
If anyone was going to take the lead on a case like this, George was grateful it was Harry.
“Here.” Harry handed him the paperwork back. “Go ahead and finish this up. I’ve got enough notes to get a couple searches in before this morning’s briefing. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
“Thank you,” he said, and felt like he’d never be able to say it enough. “You’re brilliant. Has anyone told you that recently?”
“Only Hermione.” Harry grinned. “I mean, she did agree to marry me for a reason.” They’d announced it at the Weasley Wednesday family dinner a couple weeks ago, when Hermione appeared and everyone couldn’t help but notice the new accessory she was sporting. They’d all known, of course—Harry couldn’t shut up about it once he’d made the decision—but still, it was exciting to have another wedding to look forward to after Ginny and Lia’s. Two weddings. And he was sure Ron and Katie were next. George tried not to think about it too much, otherwise the lump in his throat would come back when he remembered how brutally single he himself was.
“Oh,” Harry continued as George made a move towards the door, “and you’re helping me with today’s training.”
“What?!”
“You’ll need a distraction, won’t you?”
George just scoffed playfully and headed back to his office, unwilling to admit to Harry just how right he was. In the last five years or so, the number of active Aurors had dwindled from over a dozen to eight. It was a good sign, since fewer Aurors meant less activity, but a few of them were new, and Kingsley wanted to make sure none of them were unprepared. As a result, he had implemented monthly lectures and training, and George half-wondered if it was Kingsley’s way to take advantage of Harry’s ability to teach as well. He loved learning from him in the DA and he loved learning from him now. What he didn’t always love was helping, because usually “helping” meant he was on the wrong end of Harry’s wand.
Thankfully, that day’s lesson wouldn’t send him to St. Mungos. Or... at least it shouldn’t. Their training room was a fairly small new addition but had just enough tables and seats for all eight Aurors plus a standing room at the front for Harry to demonstrate. The chalkboard at the front, which Harry had specifically requested, had “TRACKING” on it in Harry’s messy scrawl, and George breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Harry doing nothing except getting his notes together as he walked in an hour later.
“No jinxes this month?” he teased.
“Not today. Look, as much as you tested on all of us in third year, I’d say we’re almost even at this point.” Harry smirked back.
“Tracking, huh?”
“Yeah.” Harry and George waved as the other Aurors started to trickle in. “Considering the randomness of attacks lately and our, uh... sudden proclivity to want to find certain people, I thought it might be good to give everyone a refresh anyway.”
Once everyone took their seats and settled in, Harry began.
“Good morning, everyone! I know we’ve all got loads going on today, so I’ll try to make this only take the hour this time.” The statement was met with a few chuckles around the room; Harry was known for going over time when he got on a roll. George definitely saw a career as a professor once his time as an Auror was done.
“As everyone is aware, there have been more and more instances of attacks in both Muggle and Wizarding locations. As a team, we’ve been able to apprehend a good number of them, but that’s not appearing to be a good enough deterrent. Now, based off of our reports over the last few months, the number of new recruits seems to be slowing down, which is good, but the attacks aren’t, which means they’re not just trying to get as many bodies as possible, like last time.
“Last night’s attack had too many escapees. That’s no one’s fault, okay? While they’re not an immediate threat to the Wizarding World at the moment, our priority here in this office is to make sure that all of you make it back. If that means retreat, we do that. If that means letting them go, we do that. I've had too many people willing to sacrifice themselves for my sake and I don't need anymore. Understood?”
A couple nods made it through the room.
“That being said, letting them go doesn’t necessarily mean that we lose them. And that’s where this comes in.” Harry gestured to the board.
Over the course of the next hour, Harry went over their options for tracking, from the most common charms and spells to slightly more unorthodox methods the Ministry didn’t normally use, techniques, a couple of recent studies, and making sure everyone knew proper incantations and movements. As promised, after all the spells George had been subjected to, he didn’t think Harry could ever stop tracking him if he tried. They didn’t track a lot of dark wizards as the Ministry preferred them in Azkaban, but every once in a while, a quick tracking spell could be useful in predicting possible attacks, which seemed to be exactly the kind of thing they needed to start doing. And if a quick spell could make their jobs easier, no one was complaining about that.
“You alright, George?” one of the Aurors, Aurelia, teased as they filed out, sipping at her coffee. She’d joined the Aurors a couple years ago from a previous job as a kids’ Quidditch instructor, which had definitely been a bonding point and ended up with George spending many lunch breaks arguing about which team was the best—still the Chudley Cannons, but he had to say the Harpies since his sister was their best Chaser. “I think Harry went easy on you today.”
Aurelia was beautiful, tall and strong with dark skin and brown eyes and curls she usually wore up in a perfect bun. Today, though, her hair cascaded down her back, which meant she didn't plan to go out into the field. It must be an office day for her, then, too. She and George had gone out to get a coffee a couple times, but nothing really progressed past that. “He definitely did. Though now he’ll never be rid of me, which I’m sure he’ll regret in a couple days.”
“You think it would only take a couple days?”
“Well, I’d give it a couple hours, really,” George grinned.
“We’ve spent longer than that together and I wasn’t ready to get rid of you.”
Swallowing, George looked down at his feet. He knew she kind of had a thing for him. And he’d tried; really he had. He’d done his best to ignore the fact that they were coworkers and he’d agreed to coffee knowing they were actually dates, but he always felt like there was something holding him back. He didn’t know what it was, and he’d been fine with hookups every now and then through the years, but no one had clicked. He wasn’t expecting to find “the one” right off the bat, but by now, he’d hoped he’d find someone he would feel comfortable settling down with. And he was getting frustrated with wasting his time. Aurelia was nice, and he enjoyed her company, but he knew it wasn’t going to turn into anything serious. They were better as just coworkers.
“Well, you’re not Harry Potter.”
“And thank Merlin I’m not,” she laughed. “What are you doing for lunch today?”
“Starving,” he answered genuinely.
Aurelia was concerned for a moment, then nodded. “Ah. I forgot. Weasley Wednesday. I’d be making room, too. What’s on the menu tonight?”
“Oh, she’s going all out,” George explained as they headed to the break room. He needed another cup of coffee, too, now that he was thinking about it. “Gin’s off for the next few months now that the season’s over and they didn’t make it to the championships this year, so it’ll be the first one she’s been at in a while. Mum’s over the moon. I am too, of course. Missed the hell out of her.”
“How long do you reckon she’ll stay this time?”
That got a genuine laugh out of George. “Well, she’s already been home for a couple days, so I imagine Lia’s gotten her fill. Fingers crossed it’ll be the whole time.” Even as sickening as it was to think about his sister like that, she never blamed the two of them for holing up at their cottage in Ireland every time Ginny came home from a long trip. Sometimes Lia would travel to games, but they had a farm and animals that needed tending. That was Lia’s passion, just as Quidditch was Ginny’s. She visited home as often as she could, but those off-season months were precious. And with the way those two looked at each other, he’d be surprised if more often than not, they barely even made it in the door.
Maybe a hookup wouldn’t be so bad after all.
“Wanna make a bet?”
“On whether or not my sister’s getting laid tonight?” George joked as he filled his coffee. “No thank you.”
“No, she’s getting laid either way.” He playfully grimaced. “Whether or not she’ll stay all night.”
George poured some milk and sugar into his coffee, stirring it thoughtfully. “Okay, I’ll play along.” He turned to Aurelia, who was smirking over the top of her cup. “What’s the wager?”
“Dinner? At the Leaky?”
George’s eyes softened. “Aurelia—"
“Not as a date. I know. That ship has sailed. Unless you’ve changed your mind, in which case I would gladly take the offer.”
“It’s not that—"
“I know, I know. You’re the one missing out, Weasley. That’s your fault.” She grinned, nudging his shoulder. “But no, I’ve actually just been dying to have a night off cooking. So really, I win either way.”
“I guess that’s fair. What’s all night though? Eight?”
“Nine.”
“Nine?!” George signed dramatically, sticking out his hand. “Deal. She leaves before nine, I buy. She leaves after nine, it’s on you.”
“Deal. And no meddling."
"Me?! Meddle?! It's like you don't even know me."
In response, Aurelia just raised an eyebrow, took out her wand, and vanished the cup from his hands before walking out of the kitchen with a flirtatious wave. "Witch."
It wasn't until lunch—or, in George's case, lack thereof—while he was reviewing the last couple weeks of case notes, that Harry knocked on the doorframe with a smile on his face. "Good news."
George looked up at him immediately, interest piqued from the lack of information he was getting with the resources he had access to. His eyes had started to glaze over anyway. "Mum's actually not cooking tonight and we're allowed to eat?" he asked hopefully.
"Unfortunately not," Harry groaned as he came into the office. "No, I was able to pull the map and there was a group of four villages attacked in the past two weeks that were close enough to each other to merit looking into."
"And?"
"All the same situation. Village ransacked. No reported survivors. And they moved on. Which to me means..."
"They're looking for something and they didn't find it," George finished, and Harry nodded.
"If only we could figure out what it is they're looking for. And I have... a lot of bad ideas, so I hope none of those are true."
The thought of horcruxes flashed through George's brain, too. Even though he was sure Voldemort was dead for good and there was clearly nothing that could bring him back, the thought of Death Eaters doing another search made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He knew there were all kinds of dangerous magical artifacts and curses that he, and even the Ministry, couldn't begin to understand. And if Harry was nervous...
"Me too."
"It's a good start, though. I'll talk to Hermione at dinner tonight. I know how much she loves talking about work outside of work. Almost as much as your mum," Harry smiled.
"See, it'll be a great time. Plenty of dinner conversation."
"Exactly! Speaking of dinner conversation, did I hear you betting with Aurelia?"
George groaned, head falling into his hands. "Unfortunately. Just dinner at the Leaky." Harry's eyebrows rose in curiosity. "Not another date. Just dinner."
"You could, you know. You're both adults. I trust you to make good judgments when it comes to who you date."
He shook his head. "No, no, it's not like that. Really. You know how our coffee dates went."
"Sometimes opposites attract though, right?"
"Not like that. I dunno. She just... doesn't feel like the one, you know? And I..." George gave a one shoulder shrug. "You and I do need to go for a night out, though, speaking of. Preferably where I have the following day off. I need a... well, if I'm being honest, I need a few drinks. And a girl."
"Drinks, I can get you. Girl... I'm afraid you're on your own, mate. Unless Lia's got some single friends."
George rolled his eyes. "She's the whole reason we got into this mess."
"Still have a crush on her?"
"What? Are you kidding? That was, like, a decade ago."
"Doesn't mean she's not cute."
"Besides the point."
"Listen, if we're being honest, I've still got a tiny bit of a crush on Fleur."
"Who doesn't?"
"So my point stands."
"I'm not asking Lia if she's got single friends. I don't think I want a... relationship, necessarily. Not right now."
"Just a shag then. I'll make a plan!"
"This is a wildly inappropriate conversation to be having with my boss," George laughed, but he was grateful for the distraction and the entertainment for a little bit. The post-lunch lull was his least favorite part of the day.
"Oh, please. I'm practically family. You’re lucky to have me for a boss.”
He still technically owned Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, but after a few years running it alone after the battle, it had started to become a chore more than the fun it used to be, and so he asked Ron if he wanted to take it over. Ron, of course, had graciously said yes. George still lived in the flat above it and was there from time to time, checking in and handling all the legal and financial stuff from year to year, but Ron was shockingly good at keeping it afloat. Maybe shockingly wasn't the word—that didn't give him enough credit. He just hadn't thought Ron was a business kind of guy. But he'd wanted the store to stay in the family if he could help it, and Ron had been happy to carry on the legacy while getting out of his boring Ministry job. How ironic that they'd switched places.
He'd thought about what he wanted to do for a while, but Harry had always told him he was a good dueler, halfway trying to recruit him every time the department was hiring, so he'd given it a go. The first time he'd apprehended a Dark Wizard was one of the most exhilarating moments of his life thus far. He'd felt like he was making a difference. Doing something good for the world. He'd made a promise to himself to avenge his brother, and putting someone in handcuffs felt like one step closer. So he'd stayed, made a place for himself, and now he was basically Harry's right hand. The satisfaction never left, even after all the captures. That’s what made this one in particular so intriguing. She may have let him go, but he couldn’t let her go. Even though he couldn’t see her, he could feel her stare, even now.
“What are you thinking about?” Harry said, his voice much more serious now. Back in Auror mode.
“Just... her.” George shook his head.
“Hey. We’ll figure it out, okay? I’m doing everything I can.”
“I know. I know. And thank you for going through all this trouble for me.”
“It’s not just for you,” Harry grinned. “Now you’ve got me interested, too. I’ll let you take the lead on this one, but only because I’ve got too much to do as it is, sadly. Speaking of which,” he checked his watch, “I’m due to Azkaban in an hour to see what I can find out about some of their Dementors disappearing.”
“Sorry, mate.”
“I would say I’m gonna do my best to be prepared, but... whatever my best is, it isn’t enough. Hopefully it’ll be a quick visit. But thank God I’ve got dinner to look forward to tonight. And better during the day than at night.”
“Definitely.”
“I’ll see you later.”
“Good luck.”
The rest of the day had George filling out more reports, catching up on some new evidence for creatures cases he was involved with and piecing together information from interviews. His mind was elsewhere, though. When the clock on his wall chimed five, he didn’t feel like he’d actually gotten anything done, but he packed up his files, locked them in his desk, and Apparated straight to the Burrow.
Lia and Ginny were already there when he arrived, and he’d barely made it though the door before his sister’s arms were around his neck, nearly choking him with a hug. He, of course, dropped his bag to return it, all worries of work gone in an instant. “Oh, I get a hug this time instead of being hexed on the doorstep? Someone must be in a good mood,” he teased as he released her.
“You’re welcome,” Lia called from the couch, not looking up from her copy of Witch Weekly even as a couple blonde curls fell into her face.
“You can’t wait five seconds, can you?”
“To make you uncomfortable? Absolutely not.” He hated how her Irish accent actually did make everything sound nicer. It just meant she could be mean.
“Hey Gin,” George finally said, changing the subject. “Good to see you.”
“You too! Would’ve preferred it a little sooner, honestly. It was a rough ending to the season and I was kind of ready for it to be over anyway,” she admitted.
“Yeah, I could tell. You had to carry most of those last few games, didn’t you?”
Ginny smirked as George moved his bag out of the way and headed into the kitchen. She loved when he said stuff like that, whether it was true or not. And this season, it really had been. Besides the Cannons, he always kept a close watch on the Harpies. They’d put in an alternate halfway through the season when one of the girls found out she was pregnant, and there were some growing pains with her learning how to really play with the rest of the team. Sometimes it took a while for things to click; he knew Ginny didn’t feel truly comfortable with the team until she’d played nearly a full season.
“Merlin, don’t remind me. Did you see my stats from the last one? I swear to God if Rhi chucks one more wide I’m kicking her off the team myself. Nothing else about that woman is straight, so I shouldn't be surprised her throws aren't either.” She rolled her eyes, stealing a raw baby carrot from the roast tray and biting it in half.
“Ginny!” Mrs. Weasley scolded, rolling her eyes playfully at George.
“What? The chicken’s not in there yet. I’m starving!”
“We were waiting for everyone to get here.”
“Not my fault Ron refuses to close early and Harry and Hermione can’t be quick about their after work activities.”
“You’re one to talk—"
“I’m here aren’t I?”
“Enough!” Molly huffed, shooing them out of the kitchen. “This is why I make everyone stay out there! Go find your father. Good to see you, sweetheart.” She pressed a kiss to George’s cheek. “Now get out so I can cook in peace.”
As predicted, he did find his father in the shed. Ginny had gone to sit back down next to Lia, but George headed around the back of the house to find his father tinkering with something. This time, though, it looked like lots of sparks were involved. Was he... making something?
“Hey Dad!”
“Ah! George! Just the man I’m looking for!” he said, pushing a welding mask up from his face. “Come check this out. I’m trying to make Lia and Ginny some centerpieces for their tables for the wedding. What do you think?”
“Uhh...” The heap of metal in front of George’s eyes had some shape to it, but he couldn’t tell at all what it was supposed to be. “It’s... what’s the vision here?”
“Oh! Flowers. A little bouquet of flowers. Can’t you tell?”
“Er...” Maybe if he squinted and tilted his head. “Kind of?”
“Needs some work, I know. I’m still practicing. It’s a fun hobby, though. Fun to make things instead of just taking them apart and forgetting how they go back together.”
“You’re right,” George laughed. “This is much more productive. Definitely need some more practice with the, uh… shapes, but it's a start, I’d say. You’ve got time.”
“Not much,” Arthur reminded him. "Three months will be gone in a blink. Speaking of which...” Arthur took his helmet off entirely, placing it on the bench in front of him.
“Oh no.”
“What?! Nothing to say oh no about, I was just... curious as to how you’re doing in that department.”
“I’d be better if people would stop reminding me.”
“Alright, alright. Point taken. I just... well, I want to make sure you’re not...”
“Not what? Lonely? Past my prime? I’m only 26!”
“No! None of that at all. We just want you to be happy, George. You know that. Your mother and I both do. Whatever that means for you.”
“It’s... it’s not that I’m trying. I just… I can't seem to find more than something... casual right now. Which is fine, but—”
To George’s surprise, Arthur laughed and nodded in agreement. “I understand. I just... know it’s hard when it seems like everyone around you is getting engaged and married and talking about babies, even if that’s not what you want right away. You feel like you’re missing out?”
George nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I know I’m not because... I mean sometimes it’s nice not having someone to worry about, but at the same time, I wish I had someone to worry about.”
“Your person will come, George.” Arthur patted him on the shoulder genuinely. “It’ll come when the time is right. Who knows? She could have been right in front of you all along.”
Miraculously, Harry managed to wait until after dinner to bring work up with Hermione, when the three of them were sitting on the couch with their ice cream. Harry was in the middle, Molly and Arthur were on the loveseat next to them, and sharing an oversized chair—because they actually couldn’t go one second without touching each other—were Lia and Ginny. He was starting to glance at the clock more than usual, wondering if he shouldn’t have made that bet with Aurelia after all. They just had to make it another hour.
“So, Hermione,” Harry started, nudging George’s knee with his own and drawing his attention away from the girls.
“Hmm?” she answered as she pulled the spoon from between her lips.
“We got a case this morning-“
Instantly, Hermione huffed, her shoulders dropping playfully. “Harry—”
“Hear me out, okay? I just... George is involved too, so I figured this would be the easiest way we could all talk together since we don’t know what our schedules are gonna be like tomorrow.”
Hermione took a deep breath, then sighed deeply but turned towards Harry and glanced at George, who gave her a cheesy smile. “Fine. But it’s for George. Not for you.”
“George?” Harry prompted.
“Oh. You want me to start? Okay, uh...” He cleared his throat. “I... last night, I went in after a raid and there was this woman there—a Death Eater—who had the opportunity to kill me, and she didn’t.”
The soft chatter in the room stopped as four sets of eyes were suddenly on them, spoons clinking on the mugs they were eating from. “What?” Ginny’s voice was quiet.
“I want to find her,” he continued. “She Apparated out with the kids who survived. It seemed like she was trying to save them. She told them she would get them to somewhere safe. And she surprised me, but for some reason, she froze. I got away, but... I don’t know who she is or who she’s working for, but there’s something weird going on.”
Hermione’s brows furrowed as she listened carefully, nodding when George was done. “You want me to look up the kids?”
“I was thinking that you could try to get in touch with some of the orphanages in the area and see if they’ve had any kids dropped off last night. Or maybe in the past week or so,” Harry chimed in. “I can get you a map. That’s what I’ve been working on today. There’s a pattern.”
“Why would a Death Eater be saving children only to drop them off at an orphanage?” Lia asked.
“I don’t know,” George answered. “They’re all Muggle villages, too, so it’s not even like they’re trying to recruit any of them.”
“Unless somehow they’re getting magical signatures or something,” Hermione offered. “Maybe they’re trying to find Muggleborns.”
“They wouldn’t be saving Muggleborns, Hermione.” Harry’s voice was serious, even as he reached over for Hermione’s hand. Even though Hermione didn’t seem to mind as much anymore, Harry always looked out for her, especially in the last few months with the Death Eaters on the rise again. He’d do anything to protect her.
And there was George getting jealous again.
“Can we get a... a census or something? Of the villages that were attacked? If we have a number of who started and a number of the ones that were dropped off, maybe we can see if they’re keeping any of them. I know it doesn’t make sense, but we have to start somewhere.”
Harry nodded. “Thank you.”
“And they’re only attacking Muggle villages, right?”
“For the moment, yes. As far as we can tell.”
“We think they’re looking for something,” George added, “but that’s just a theory. Nothing to support that yet.”
“I’ll see what I can find. And for the record,” Hermione took a dramatic bite of ice cream, “that totally could have been a tomorrow conversation.”
"The America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."
I love it when fan fiction writers are like: “ah shit, this was meant to be one part but I started writing it and now it has to be three”. Like the fanfic is happening to them and not being created by them.
i promise i'm working on this bishova fic, guys. i'm just running out of time for dragon con and it's in the rewrite stage, which isn't hard, but tedious. i'm kind of combining what i have for drafts one and two so i'm flipping back and forth between them to make sure everything is cohesive? but let's be real i'll probably have to read over it again anyway once i'm done.
i PLAN on getting BTM up to date on here too tonight when i post my most recent chapter! trying to spend 2026 getting my life in order 🙃
Kate likes to be under Yelena so she can feel the physical weight and presence of someone who hasn’t left her life yet. Yelena lays on Kate’s chest so that she can hear Kate’s heartbeat and reassure herself that the person she loves the most is alive, breathing and safe.
Title: Borrow the Moonlight
Rating: M
Pairing: George/Claire (OC)
Chapters: 1/17
Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Enemies with Benefits, but for real, George falls in love with a Death Eater, Background Harry/Hermione, Background Ron/Katie, Background Ginny/Lia, George is dealing with some not so happy thoughts, eventual smut, not necessarily HEA though, that's what the sequel is for, random side character death, Auror George, Head Auror Harry, Muggle Relations Hermione
Summary: During one night mission, George runs into a Death Eater who doesn't kill him when she has the chance. In fact, she also seems to be rescuing the kids. He can't stop thinking about her, wondering who she is and what all of it means, but will he be able to convince the Auror department--and most importantly, Harry--that he's not losing his mind? Something's different about this case and about this woman, like he knows there's a piece of the puzzle missing. He just has to find it.
As always, starring Florence Pugh as Claire and Saoirse Ronan as Lia.
Updated on Mondays!
Read on AO3 or below!
Prologue
George hated night missions. He was better during the day, when he could rely on sight rather than having to focus more on covering his left side. His hearing had never come back right, even with the prosthetic he’d gotten a couple years ago. It was always a bit muffled, a little less clear. It liked to play tricks on him, especially when he was nervous. And when he needed every sense he had to keep himself out of danger, something as simple as an earlobe could mean the difference between life and death. He’d almost learned that the hard way.
More than night, he hated working alone. He hated being alone. But he had to be right now. The bigger the crowd, the more suspicious they became. Harry had always taught them that when they were in the field. Being an Auror, he’d quickly learned, was nothing like fighting at Hogwarts. Nothing like fighting a huge battle like he had six years ago now. Being an Auror now meant stealth. Recon. Watching and listening. Waiting.
A crescent moon on a semi-overcast April night didn’t bode well for his sight. He’d adjusted a little, and with the aid of the bit of light coming from the still-smoldering fires, he could make out the silhouettes of what was left of the small village. The few followers of Voldemort’s that were left had started to rally together again, just when the Wizarding World had thought it was all over for good. Their numbers weren’t large, and the Ministry planned to keep it that way. Unfortunately, though, it meant they were harder to track. And they’d been too late this time. All he could smell was smoke, the burning only made sharper by the rain that had fallen earlier in the day. All he could rely on was what he could hear.
The sound of children gasping pricked his ears, and he turned his head in the direction of the homes that had been whole just an hour ago, now reduced to ruins and ash. George willed his heart to beat softer, quieter, so he could concentrate. He shifted on the balls of his feet ever so slightly, not daring to move until he had to, even as he felt a bead of sweat trickle down his neck.
A second voice. A woman, by the sound of it. Low muttering. Even in the silence of the night, he couldn’t make out what she was saying. He dared to peek around the corner, and when he didn’t see anyone, George carefully inched himself away from the wall. He had to get closer. If there was any chance of saving these kids, it sure wouldn’t be leaving them in the hands of—
“—get you somewhere safe and— ” The woman stopped talking, and George held his breath, sinking back against the small bit of cobblestone he’d managed to find that was still standing. If she was trying to help them, whose side was she on? The Death Eaters most certainly would have killed her. Unless she’d somehow managed to evade them. Unless she was one.
He couldn’t hear anything at all now; even the kids had seemed to sense the danger they were in. Or was it the danger he was in? George held his breath and closed his eyes, his good ear straining to hear something. Anything.
With less noise than a whisper, George found himself pinned to the crumbling wall behind him, staring down (she barely reached his chest) into a face covered with an intricate silver mask. He couldn’t make out what was on it, only that he could still see it, even after a few seconds. Those few seconds were all he needed to flip himself around to the other side, out of the grip of her faltering spell. Maybe she was new or maybe she was injured. Either way, he could use it to his advantage. She wasn’t coming after him, and when he popped back out on the other side, she was nowhere to be seen.
When he went to check on the kids, neither were they.
What the hell had he just witnessed?
George was still thinking about it by the time he got back to his office, he was thinking about it while he filled out the unnecessary “necessary” paperwork, and he was thinking about her when he finally made it to his bed that night, staring up at the ceiling, unable to actually fall asleep. She didn’t kill him, but he had heard at least two kids with her. Disapparating with multiple people took an insane amount of power and energy. He’d only done it a couple times and if he never had to do it again, it would be too soon. There wasn’t any way she could have done that right after slipping up on such a simple spell.
He shot up in bed. She hadn’t slipped up. She wasn’t even panting. Wasn’t even exerting herself. She’d let him go. Willingly.
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