Love You Through It
Summary: In which George Weasley tries to spare his lover.
A/N: I thought this fic was going to go in a very different direction, but as I wrote, I just . . . well, kept writing. And as I did, the story changed in my mind, and this is the product. Don’t even know what else to say.
Warnings: mentions of death, argument, food
Word Count: 3.7k
. . .
George Weasley had not been the same since the war.
This was to be expected, of course. His best friend, his twin brother, had been killed, and how could he possibly be the same with his other half missing?
The short answer was that he could not.
The long answer, however—the real answer,—was that he really did try. For weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, George Weasley thought for sure he would never be happy again. His joke shop was mere metres below his own feet at every moment, and yet he could never bring himself to down the flight of stairs leading to the shop. Instead, someone else took care of the logistics and cancelled the coming inventory when she realized Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes would not be back in business for quite a while. This was the same person who made sure George always had a glass of water on his bedside table and who checked in on him every hour or so just to see if he had found the energy to wake. Each morning, she slipped into George’s room from her temporary sleeping spot on the living room couch, and spread open the curtains that she had drawn the night before, just in case George awoke and reached for the sunlight. In the early days, she did not realize just how long it would be until he would do so.
. . .
It was May 29 of 1998, twenty-seven days after George had lost Fred, when he realized this wonderful woman, his beautiful Y/N, had lost people too. George fancied himself a relatively empathetic person, but in the pain of losing his brother, he had forgotten that his girlfriend deserved the same care she had gifted to him. She never had a chance to mourn: since day one, it was her providing for George, and he was too consumed with his own grief to see it. However, when George awoke on that morning near the end of such a terrible month, he saw the clothes laid out and the window cracked open for what they truly were: Y/N’s love.
She had known not to push him in the beginning. Perhaps just the suggestion of a shower here and there, or an offer of dinner. But recently things had been different. She knew what George needed—she knew better than anyone—and he could not have been more grateful in that moment for the sunlight streaming through the open blinds and the sounds of Diagon Alley slipping through the cracked open window. When he sat up in bed, he could have sworn his head spun around one thousand times.
Maybe it was during this momentary loss of consciousness that George Weasley’s brain opened wide enough to realize he would never deserve Y/N Y/L/N.
He had told her countless times before, of course, but always out of adoration and genuine confusion on how he landed such a perfect woman. She had been there through everything, and George knew that if he did not take action, she would continue to suffer for him. He had been a horrid partner up to this point, and he could not allow himself comfort at her expense. After all, he would never be the same, so what was the point of keeping her waiting around for her George to come back?
. . .
At the sound of creaking floorboards, Y/N instantly shot up from her spot at the kitchen table. She had just finished making breakfast and was enjoying her share of the eggs she made. Her share, George figured, because there was another plate of food sitting at the other end of the table. A brief moment of selfish panic crossed his mind at the thought of her lovingly preparing something for anyone other than himself.
He lifted his gaze from the plate of eggs and toast when Y/N cleared her throat.
“George,” she whispered. Her body seemed to unconsciously back up, sending her chair skidding across the wooden floor. She nearly moved to approach him but thought better of it, deciding to merely gesture toward the empty spot across from her. She knew him well. “There’s food,” she said.
“For me?” George asked with a hitch in his throat at the effort of speaking after so many weeks of silence.
“Of course. Who else?” Y/N replied, shaking her head. “Although I usually bring it into your room and just leave it there, and sometimes when I come back it’s gone, and other times you’ve hardly touched it, but obviously you know that. After all you’re the one that eats-”
George cut off her nervous rambling with a silent nod and took a seat, thinking even further about how he could never make up for what he had put her through. Y/N’s mouth snapped shut, and she stared as he lifted his fork. Apparently deciding he was not going to flee, she sat back down as well. As he took small, slow bites, George noticed that Y/N had not moved from her straight-backed, hands-on-her-lap position. He looked up to meet her eyes and was greeted with a hesitant smile.
George spoke suddenly. “You don’t have to be so tense, Y/N. I’m not going to go feral.”
Without knowing what her reaction should be, Y/N let out a timid laugh that made her lips quiver and moved her hands to the top of the table. “I guess I just wasn’t expecting to see you today.”
“Yes, well, I figured there were some things I needed to talk to you about,” George explained. This was a shock to both of them, George jumping into things right away. Well, he had never been the kind to wait around for things to happen: he always made them happen. While Y/N was surely taken aback, only George knew the true gravity of his words. “After breakfast.”
“Certainly,” Y/N conceded, allowing George whatever time he wanted or needed to take to discuss what was on his mind, even if it was something as simple as wishing for an additional piece of toast or salt for his eggs. Y/N was not the best cook, but she definitely tried, especially for George. She made him the same breakfast she herself ate every morning, along with any other meal she prepared, and when he did not eat it worried her. She had been so incredibly relieved when she entered his room five days after the battle and noticed that he had taken a bite of his toast. It was a step up from eating nothing. And every day, she made him food that she hoped and prayed he would eat. She would do anything for him, just as she knew he would do the same for her.
She could not have known that in his own mind, George was doubting if he ever could have acted out of care for her in the same manner that she had for him. There was a small seed of doubt, and although George Weasley seemed the farthest thing from a worrier, when it came to Y/N, he was constantly and painfully aware of his inadequacies. And he would convince her of them, if it was the last thing he said to her.
. . .
Y/N had stared at him while he ate the rest of his meal, a feat she was both shocked and unsurprised that he could accomplish. He and his brothers had always been big eaters, but the past few weeks had proven just how little George could survive on. Y/N thought that his stomach had surely shrunk in the time since the war.
What had not diminished in even the slightest was Y/N’s complete and utter admiration for her lover. While he scolded himself for being so weak, she marveled at how strong he had remained through it all. Sure, he had taken some much needed time to recuperate, but not even one half of the infamous Weasley Twins could heal from such a heartbreak in a matter of days. And his healing would not be finished, but Y/N couldn’t help but hope that his actions today were a telling sign of what was to come.
Just as she began to smile to herself, George cleared his throat and pushed his now empty plate away, eliciting an ear-shattering screech as it ran along the wooden dining table. His sudden movement shocked Y/N back into reality, and she recalled George’s concerned tone when he had said they needed to discuss some things. Certainly nothing could be worse than what had already happened to them, so why should she worry?
And yet, as sure as she was that nothing could ever hurt her more than seeing her Georgie with a broken heart, his next words came near.
“You know I’m not one to dance around anything,” he began in a timid murmur. When Y/N moved her attention to George rather than his empty plate, she could not see his hands, and knowing him, she assumed they were under the table twiddling with each others’ thumbs, just as he did every time he seemed particularly anxious. What he could be anxious about, she could not know, but she had spent more than enough time around George Weasley to recognize his tells, and the fact that they were apparent led her to jump to the worst conclusions. “I especially don’t when it comes to you, because, well, I just think you always deserve honesty. And this is something I’ve been thinking about- well, not for a long time, I suppose, but for long enough in my mind-”
“George,” she cut him off, causing him to shift his attention from the top of the table to her eyes, which at this point were nervously flitting around the room. Before she spoke her next words, she focused again on the man seated across from her. “What is it?”
George inhaled a deep breath, which, if even possible, made Y/N more nervous, recognizing that he was steeling himself for something. “This past month, you have been so good to me, Y/N,” he said, looking down once more. “So good. And I will never be able to completely express how grateful I am for you. I never would have thought I could be sitting here at a dining table having a conversation only weeks after . . .” George drifted off and threw his arms onto the table, crossing them to create a pillow for his head which quickly followed suit. Y/N had known this situation was too good to be true: of course George would not magically wake up one day and be able to discuss the war. But no matter how long she had cared for him at his worst, she would never feel any less heartbroken at seeing him in a state of devastation. With his hands now in sight, Y/N reached across the table and gently laid one of hers on top of his, and at this, he peeked up at her through his lashes and sighed. George parted his lips and shut them again, and Y/N could see his mind working through his own thoughts. With another exhale, George continued, this time maintaining eye contact.
She deserves at least that, he figured.
With a somewhat stinging smile, George shook his head. “See now this is exactly what I mean. Here I am working up to tell you to leave me, and your priority is-”
“What?”
George ceased his speech immediately, realizing his mistake. He shut his eyes for a moment. “Y/N,” he began.
“No,” she interrupted again. “What the hell are you on about, George?”
“That’s not what I meant, Y/N. If you would just-”
Y/N rose from her chair, sending it sliding across the floor, just as she had earlier, although this time her shock came from a drastically different place than when she had seen George for what seemed like the first time in months. The harsh sound silenced them both, and Y/N stood with a seething stare. How dare George come back to her just to try and get rid of her moments later? He was absolutely unbelievable, and she would stand for no such thing.
During an eternal minute of silence in which both parties considered their next move, Y/N’s brain ventured across a horrible thought. The most horrible one she had ever encountered, to be quite honest. And in a moment of vulnerability, she voiced it.
“Do you . . .” she whispered. Cleared her voice. Tried again. “Do you not love me anymore?”
“No!” George replied, shouting out his answer before Y/N could even finish her question. “No, no, of course it’s not that, darling. It’s anything but that.”
Her anger returned. “Then what could possibly be the issue? What more could we ever need?”
George at least granted her a sympathetic look, tilting his head to the side, perhaps attempting to shake around his thoughts in the hopes that they would come together to form a sentence. But when it came to Y/N, George Weasley’s brain was always mush.
“I just can’t be the man you need me to be anymore,” he decided to respond.
“George, you must know I don’t expect you to go back to normal right away,” Y/N reasoned, with much more compassion in her voice and demeanor than before.
George stood abruptly. “No, Y/N, I mean ever. I’ll never be the same, and that’s not fair to you in the slightest. If I can spare you any more pain than I’ve already caused . . . Well, I have to. I owe that to you.”
Without responding, Y/N collected her and George’s dishes from the table and brought them around to the sink. George stood still, simply watching her movements, completely mesmerized as he was by everything she did. Even in this moment, when he knew that although he was trying to do the right thing and was failing miserably, Y/N still responded with just the right amount of grace and fire.
After dropping the plates and silverware into the sink and allowing them to clatter for a moment, Y/N gripped the edge of the porcelain, and even from across the room, George could see how the bumps of her knuckles turned white. She sniffed once and tilted her head back to look at the ceiling of their flat.
“You once told me you’ve loved me since third year,” she whispered. But George could still hear her. He always heard her.
The redheaded man nodded, not disagreeing at all with her statement. “And I have.”
“And do you think I haven’t changed since then?” With a deep breath, Y/N twirled around and crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you think I’m the same as I was when we met?”
George gave a slight shake of his head, yet still replied, “It’s not the same.”
Y/N raised her eyebrows and let out a mirthless bark. “It’s not the same?” she asked. “Of course it’s not the same, George, but what could be? Do you forget that Cedric Diggory and I were friends? That I told him to ask Cho to the Yule Ball because I knew them both so well? That I cheered him on during every Triwizard event? Do you not remember that yourself and Fr-” she paused, trying not to let her passion outweigh her empathy for George’s condition. “When yourself and your brother had to distract me with pranks because his death took such a toll on me, and not even gifting the nastiest batch of Puking Pastilles to Draco Malfoy could cheer me up?” Y/N looked down at the floor, recalling just how difficult that time had been for her, when Harry Potter had returned with the corpse of one of her best friends, and the world seemed to move on while everything around her came to a standstill. When she introduced herself to young Harry, simply because they shared such a horrible similarity. When she convinced her friends that Voldemort was back, for how could anyone else have defeated someone as powerful and just as the brave Cedric Diggory? When her broken heart was healed by the mischievous George Weasley, and she realized that perhaps her love for him went a bit past that of a friend. “Nothing could compare to what you’ve gone through, George, to the loss that you’ve suffered, but how dare you pretend I know nothing of the heartbreak that comes with losing someone you love.”
George felt horrible. Of course he remembered that. As awful as what happened to Diggory was, it brought him and Y/N together, and a part of him would always hold some twisted sort of gratitude for it. “Of course that’s-”
“That’s not what you meant, I know.” She waved him away. “But my point is, George, I have changed. Not just because of Cedric, but because of so many other things. And you have loved me through all of them.” Y/N brushed her hair behind her shoulder and stepped away from the kitchen sink to approach George. Taking both of his hands in hers, she begged him, “Let me love you through this.”
As George’s eyes brimmed with tears, he could not help but think of how his brother—how Fred—would smirk at him in the moment, but later, in private, admit that he was glad he found Y/N.
“Even if she was best friends with both of us and chose the worse twin,” he would say with a cheeky wink from across the counter of their joke shop, probably while he restocked love potions or some other form of hijinx, “I still think she’s good for you. Amazing, really.”
And then he would spike George’s drink with a crushed up hiccough sweet for him to drink right before his date with Y/N, and George would curse him and love him for it all the same. It would be irritating, but he and Y/N would laugh about it, and that was always Fred’s way.
And in that moment, perhaps only that one, George realized that as hesitant as she was to say it, Y/N missed Fred, too. After all, they had once been a trio, and she had lost him just as much as George had. George had grasped earlier that morning that she lost people in the war but had been too focused on his own pain to understand that they had lost the same people.
When George looked up at Y/N from his previous gaze on their linked hands, he noticed that she was looking at him with tears in her own eyes. She had been thinking the same thing, that while her world had been revolving around George’s wellbeing, she had not been as kind to herself as she deserved. Fred and George would always have a relationship unique to themselves, but that didn’t mean Y/N wasn’t a part of their friendship. In fact, she was a big part, and therefore she was missing a big part of herself. So at the same time George exited his nightmarish reverie, Y/N too reentered reality. And their hands were still linked. As they had been through this all, even if they had not known it.
“I couldn’t leave you, Georgie,” Y/N murmured. “Even if you pushed me right out the door and down the staircase.”
George laughed for what seemed like the first time in years, and he was surprised at how genuine it sounded to his own ears. Standing in the kitchen of the flat he used to share with his best friend in the whole world, George was reminded of Fred in the best way possible: laughter.
Y/N seemed to think the same thing, for despite the wetness pooling in her eyes, she smiled up at her lover and gave him a small nod. “You’re going to be okay, George,” she assured him, only because she knew so herself.
“We’re going to be okay,” George corrected her. He squeezed her hands and spun them around so that Y/N could sit on the kitchen chair while George kneeled on the ground. He lowered her down with his hands and then placed them on the top of her legs. As he traced small shapes on the knobs of her knees, George muttered, “I’m never trying to do the noble thing again.”
Y/N laughed, this time with real humor. “Promise?”
“Pinky swear,” George said, hooking his pinky finger around hers.
She cupped his face in her hands. “And even if it’s the evil thing to do, never try to get rid of me again, okay? Nothing could ever make me leave you. Nothing could ever make me stop loving you.”
“And if something dreadful happens in the future?” George asked with a serious tone.
“I’ll stay. I’ll never leave.”
With a much lighter voice, George wondered, “What if fifty years from now, when we’re old and grey, our favorite cat runs away and we find out some nasty little boy found it and kept it for himself? Or maybe a dog, I haven’t thought that far ahead, to be completely honest with you. I’d even be fine with a hamster if that’s what you wanted-”
“George,” Y/N said. “Even if something as foul as that were to happen to us, we could figure it out. Together this time. No more making decisions by yourself.”
Pushing his joke aside, George leant forward as hastily as he could to place a lingering kiss on Y/N’s lips. He poured every ounce of love he possibly could into that kiss, and as Y/N sighed into him with the relief of his mouth on hers once again, George Weasley knew he was the luckiest man alive. Because he knew that in the coming years, they would each face more heartbreak. It was inevitable. But neither of them would be alone. And they would always have someone to love them through it.
. . .
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