Bringing Them Back

George

They had been twelve.

Pandora Lovegood’s body had been thrown through the air and had landed in three spots. He had had nightmares for a long time over the chaos of her death.

It wasn’t uncommon for the two to wander away from the Burrow and find themselves there in the Lovegood gardens. Devon, England was known for housing a few ancient wizarding families, after all.

The Lovegood House had always reminded George of a stone teepee. It was tall and narrow and built at a spiral that pointed towards the sky as if to say, ‘look, look up there and wonder!’. They had spent quite a few nights sprawled on the grass with Pandora and Luna, Ginny would be there, Ron too.

Ron though, didn’t quite appreciate the quirks of the home or those that resided in it. Not that he remembered too much about Xenophilius, he worked long hours away from the home. He did, however, love his family and of the few memories George has of the man, it was him doting on his wife and child.

Fred and George, however, loved spending as much time as they could there. Specifically in the gardens under the oldest willow tree they had ever seen. It was there, in that garden, George knew – their inquisitive natures bloomed.

With the help of the starlit haired Pandora.

The woman could create whole new flowers by simply encouraging the plants around them to love. Or so he had thought. In truth, she was a brilliant Herbologist. In the muggle world she would have been known as a horticulturist. It was during those long summer days and countless nights that she taught George and Fred how to recognize, identify and grow more herbs and flowers than he had ever known could exist.

She had also let them help her with her potions.

As a Potion Master, she would often times be locked away brewing. But where most preferred a dark and cool place to brew, Pandora Lovegood did it right in her dining room. A small table set to the side, her ingredients and stores put away in a pantry under their spiral stairs.

She had sent them with Luna to go catch a gnome and ask for a single hair off its head. It was under the tree that Fred and Luna had successfully coaxed one out and were talking to it, as Pandora had explained ‘only willingly given’ would it work in the brew. The whistle was heard first.

It was loud and cut through the otherwise quiet afternoon, George having looked upwards towards the still branches of the tree first before realizing it was coming from the window of the house.

He remembered clearly, watching the little gnome squeak and run back into the hedges, and then looking at little Luna as she stood from her crouched position, her orange paisley sundress had dirt on it from where she had been kneeing. Her wide blue eyes turned towards the house and she had said gently, “The wall won’t hold.” She had reached for Fred’s hand – as he was closest to her and pulled him quickly. Purposely walking in George’s direction so she could grab him too. “Come, come behind the tree!”

And as they rounded the wide base, the shattering of glass sliced through the air, tearing through it and destroying plants and hitting the trunk. George did not know why he looked around the tree after that. Curiosity had always been one of his downfalls. But when he did he saw her there beyond the shattered window. Pandora.

Her blond hair danced upward and around her in slow motion as if moving through liquid, her body stiff, her arms thrown out in front of her and he could seen the shimmering of a weakened protego. It was faulting and the brilliant plume of smoke that came from the cauldron was slithering around her – waiting ...

George would never know what caused the full explosion.One moment he had seen this surreal scene and the next moment cobble stone was raining down around them. Bits and pieces of the roof, the walls, the kitchen hurled through the air. Fred and pulled him tight against him and the three children huddled tight against the ancient willow’s trunk.

Pandora’s last breath had been taken not sixteen feet from the three children. She had landed with a sickening thud, her blue eyes wide, the whites of them brilliant red. Her arms were missing, but there wasn’t any blood and though her head was tilted towards them – he knew she was unseeing.

He had run to her.

Fred had curled around Luna.

That was how they worked – you see? Fred was the protector, the one that cast the shield. Fred was the one who spoke to the room, who people noticed first. He was the one who understood how to navigate outside of their ‘twindom’. George? George was the one that acted. He would run first into the fire; he would grab up the sword and fight the world while others got to safety. He was quieter, more reserved, but no less sharp.

Pandora died that day in the garden that she loved, underneath a cloudless sky. So he had seen death.

He understood it. He understood that the magic within them was borrowed and would return to the Earth when their body no longer held conduit. A war had happened since that first encounter. He had watched friends and enemies fall before him, their deaths no less chaotic. He had grown so used to violent and chaotic ends.

But this?

He looked at the still form laying in the bed beside him.

He sighed.

When Fred had been hurt, George had thought the world would never be right again until he healed. When he didn’t wake up – he actually knew the world would never be right. Not really. Not in its entirety. He felt selfish, because he had truly lost friends to death, but Fred’s condition had torn him in two pieces. He had lost the ability to function for a long time.

His family didn’t quite understand him. Which he couldn’t begrudge them that – he had always been a part of a set. One half to a whole. From birth! Twins. Twins. Two.

So they didn’t know how to navigate the one.

She did.

George had been reluctant at first. Reluctant was such a nice word for it. He had been a bloody arse to her at first. Taking her concern for pity. Pity. When did pity become such a horrible thing, he wondered? But she didn’t show up in pity. She showed up with concern. She showed up alone.

Because she had been alone. Merlin, she had been. He just had not know that yet. He had known so little about the brains of the Golden Trio. The Brightest Witch of their Age. The Gryffindor Princess. He scoffed.

Thinking back on that first moment when she had knocked on his flat’s door and he had opened it to find her standing there – her tiny frame too thin to be healthy, her brown eyes sitting atop such deep purple he thought someone had punched her; she looked anything but all the grandiose names the Daily Prophet had deemed her.

She just looked tiny.

Tiny and – determined.

It had started slowly, he realized now. Their friendship. Not to say they hadn’t been friendly before, but she had been Fred’s new girlfriend and Ron’s best friend. Sure, they had spent a handful of Christmases together and summer holidays spent splashing in the pond or lounging in the afternoon sun at the Burrow. More than once, he remembered talking books with her or being annoyed by her know-it-all insistences about potions and ingredients and Merlin knows what else. She had always been so brazened in her self-righteousness.

Later, he knew it was armor.

She had had to build a thick skin against the world and she would fight for those like her.

She was a protector – like Fred.

It took a year or so, George didn’t know the exact length of time, for him to realize that her presence made his day better. That was not the right work exactly. Not better; she made things easier.

She didn’t fill silences with senseless chatter. She hadn’t come in and bossed him around or tried to force him to do anything other than just wake up. A routine had been set. Wake up. Drink tea. Figure out the day. Hermione was always there to wake him up. He had never thought about how she did it – or why – or even if it were inconveniencing for her, because she never made him feel as if he were one.

George reached out and placed his fingers on top of her small hand that laid limp against the white sheets of the hospital bed. He wished it wasn’t cold. Her entire body was cold. Cold and still and unresponsive.

Her vitals were strong. Or so the Healer had said. Strong.

How was he here again?

How was he at the bedside of another person that had helped him navigate through the world? How was Fred sitting here? How was Hermione in the bed? What….what had gone wrong?

Harry.

He almost growled as the name crossed his mind. Harry bloody Potter and his merlin-cursed need to be in people’s business. She had told him, asked him, begged him to trust her and he still had shown such a horrendous display of disrespect that George knew, irrevocably, he would never be able to look at the bespectacled wizard the same again. Savior of the Wizarding World be damned – he was no hero.

No, the hero laid in the bed.

She laid there under sheets of cheap cotton, potion vials of sustenance beside her for her nutrients and gone.

Gone from him. Gone from Fred. Just gone.

George looked to her serene face, relaxed in sleep – if one were to call it that – and felt tears slam against his eyes again. Because she was gone. Hermione Granger was gone and just who – who was going to be able to bring her back?

Fred

His knuckles were bleeding. He ran his opposite thumb over the split skin and wondered why he couldn’t feel the sting of it. Both hands held evidence of the altercation, but his left hand most likely had broken bones that should be addressed.

Still, he couldn’t feel it.

Fred looked towards Hermione, her motionless form laying between him and George. Both had settled down beside her and had refused to move an inch. Not until she woke up. Not until he knew she was alright. He moved his eyes from her to his twin and frowned.

George looked lost.

Fred watched as the near mirror image of himself reached his hand out to touch Hermione’s own hand and a surge of something came over him at the intimacy of it. Anger roared its ugly head. Hot and unyielding because he knew what he was seeing. He understood this more than he understood where his own emotions were. All the signs were there!

“You love her.”

He stated the words. He didn’t need to ask the question.

“We all love her,” George sighed out. He didn’t look at him, instead his hand curled around Hermione’s more as if he wanted to lift it and lace his fingers through her’s.

“You are in love with her.”

George looked up at him then, brows furrowed so deep over his eyes he almost looked…oh – he was angry. Fred’s own ire almost tripled then because how? How in the bloody hell was he sitting here with his twin and watching him look as if he had lost a lover? Were they? Had they fucked? No. Merlins beard! Fred stood, both hands going up into his hair and pushing it back away from him, tangling in the longer locks, he was losing it. He wasn’t mad at George. Fuck. He wasn’t mad at him. “You  want to fuck her?” Stop. Stop right there. He shook his head, he didn’t mean to say that – he didn’t care. No, he did actually - of course he did. “That’s why you kept pressuring me…”

“Fred,” George’s voice was hard. “I have never had to, but I swear if you keep talking, I will pummel you just like you laid into Harry.”

His hands dropped and he stepped towards him, pointing at him, “Why…when…she’s mine!”

“You don’t think I know that?” George questioned him, he had not moved at all, still sitting with his hand atop her’s and his body hunched nearly as if he were praying. “All we did together was survive the loss of you, Fred. Stop with the dramatics, just for once.”

“Stop with the dramatics?” He blinked, “George you…do you love her?”

He watched George look at Hermione and then down to their hands, slowly he lifted it and sandwiched it between his own, “She makes living easier, you know?”

“What?”

“She made it possible,” George looked back to him, ocean blue eyes honest, “When you were gone, I don’t think I knew how to be anything. It sounds ridiculous because we’re two separate people now – but then? Fred I didn’t know how to bloody function. And she just…made me.” He scoffed, “Just kept showing up and making me. Day after day, night after night, weeks into months into years. I watched her take on the world and I …missed you. Merlin mate, you have no idea how much I missed you and she was the only one who seemed to get it. To truly get it. Mum, Dad – Bill, all of them really, they mourned and I suppose they could mourn but me?” He raised the hand on top of Hermione’s and pointed to his face, “I saw you everything I looked at a reflection.” Fred deflated, his anger ripped away from him only to be replaced with embarrassment, with something closer to shame toying at his heart. But George continued: “You know she used to look at me sometimes,” George shook his head, “I always knew when she was looking for you. I hated when other people would do it, but her? Never. Because every single time she saw you in me she had this spark, like a twinkle that would sit at the corner of her right eye and she would say something so impossible sappy,” he chuckled, “Most of the time she would just say things like, ‘George, you know you have such a beautiful smile, Fred’s always slanted to the left – but yours? It takes up your whole face!’ or ‘He would have smirked at that, found it funny but you get so serious sometimes, you’ll wrinkle before your forty’…..” he sighed, “She would always compliment us both but separate us. She made it clear that she knew who she was looking at.”

He shook his head, “George…I don’t know why I am so angry. I don’t know why I said all of that.” And he didn't. He was just so angry. Confused. He felt as if he didn't know which way was up or which way was down. He wanted to punch George, he wanted to pummel Harry again. Hell, he wanted Hermione to wake up so he could scream at her for putting them all through this. 

“Because it’s the truth.”

Fred’s mouth went slack, “What…”

“I do love her,” George frowned at his admission, but then he shrugged, “Hermione loves you.”

He watched George for a long moment, taking in the scene before him. Watching his brother look worriedly at the woman in the bed. Fred followed his gaze and looked at her. The woman in the bed. The woman who had lived six years without him. A woman who had grown up six years with his brother by her side. The woman who had dedicated herself to bringing him back. That was love, was it not?

Yes.

He just didn’t know if it was because she loved him or because…he looked at George again. Or she just loved.

“What are we going to do about Harry?” George’s question completely derailed his train of thought and he closed his eyes as he felt the familiar snaking of anger curl around him. A python of rage that choked him.

Fred didn’t know the answer. He looked at his knuckles, “I can hit him again?”

George nodded, “I can’t even look at him.”

“We’ll have to,” he motioned towards Hermione, “The git is her brother – she’ll be livid if we don’t let him…”

“Off the hook?” George snarled, “No. I…I wont allow it. He has been…” he lifted Hermione’s hand and scooted until his forehead rested against her knuckles, “He has to pay for this.”

“George…”

“He has to.”

“What are you –“

“ – she brought Sirius back for the bloody menace and how does he repay her?.”

“I know.”

“No you don’t know – you don’t. Bloody hell you just do not get it. You weren’t…” he stopped speaking and Fred watched his shoulder sag with a weight he was unsure how to help carry. “So much has happened in the time you were away, Fred, so much happened during the war. She hasn’t told you anything and…its not really my story to tell, but you will hear it.” George looked up to him then, “But it’s a conversation we need to have with Ron.”

“Ronnie?”

“He was there for most of it.”

“Most?”

A darkness clouded George’s eyes then, “I’ll let him explain that part.”

A knock interrupted the both of them and they turned to look at the door as a young woman in healer green robes walked in. She looked from Fred to George and back again before greeting them, “Good evening, my name is Healer Tribby,” she moved around Fred to stand in the vacant spot opposite of George, “I hear Miss Granger outdid herself once again.”

Fred and George looked at each other before turning to her, Fred speaking: “We don’t know what went wrong.”

“That – “ she would say as she flicked her wand and a purple HUD of vitals came to view over Hermione, she read it quickly, “Is not entirely true, now is it?”

Silence met the question and she pressed on, “Minister Shacklebolt has informed me of the nature of this injury and has given me the material that Miss Granger had written for him to look over. It is rather brilliant,” she looked towards Hermione’s face, “It was interrupted, yes?”

“Yes.” They answered together.

“By Mr. Potter?”

He nodded, but George answered aloud, “Yes.”

“And so the reactor was introduced to too many positives – the negative was not able to withhold the barrier. It…it will take time to figure out how to help her.” She sighed, “From what I gather from her own work study – an equal exchange had to be made.”

“It was supposed to be…”

She raised her hand and he silenced himself, “It is unclear what was taken from her – what part of her was used in exchange to bring Mr. Black back from…from…” she frowned, “We will have to keep her for a long while until we figure it out.”

“Here?” George asked.

She looked towards him with a small frown, “At least for the first three weeks.”

“Three weeks?” Fred breathed, “Will it really take that long to figure out what is wrong with her?”

George glared at him, but it was Healer Tribby who answered, “If not longer – unless our resident Brightest Witch wakes up on her own.”

“She will,” Fred stated. George and Healer Tribby exchanged a look after his statement and he glowered, “She will.”

“I hope so, Mr. Weasley, I truly do,” Healer Tribby would say before she began administering a few spells and helping Hermione’s body drink the potions that would help her body while her mind was …while it was…

“And what of Mr. Black?” George asked.

She paused in what she was doing for a few seconds before turning her gaze over her shoulder to look at George, “He is awake, speaking – he is located in room B7, if you would like to go visit him.” She paused again and faced them both more fully, “Visiting hours are over, but considering this situation I have allowed for the two of you to remain.”

Fred nodded, “Thank you.”

“And what of Sirius’ family?” George's head tilted curiously.

Her eyes seemed to harden behind her words, “Mr. Potter was asked to leave not forty minutes ago. As I stated: visiting hours are over.”