Torn between options
George wandered into the living room of the flat above the shop. The light was on and he saw his flat mate, Carl, sitting in the living room reading. There were three mismatching armchairs and a burgundy loveseat sitting in a semi-circle around a brown coffee table. His friend was sitting in a dark grey armchair with his feet tucked under his body. He looked up and called a greeting before going back to his book.
George responded with a half-hearted greeting of his own before flopping onto the couch and staring at the ceiling. There was a black soot stain in a far corner of the room, he felt a twinge in his chest as he remembered the incident that caused it. One of their more unstable experiments, it was a project he and Fred had brought up from their workshop. The potion had been time sensitive but they had to keep an eye on it, so they moved it upstairs so they could have dinner. The fire that had started led to the mutually agreed upon rule that absolutely no live experiments would be taken out of the workroom upon pain of all chores being heaped upon he who broke it.
The clock on the mantle over the fireplace chimed, startling George out of his reverie. He turned his head to look at the wooden contraption. It was a silly little cuckoo clock their dad had enchanted for them as a house-warming gift. For some reason, the thing only chimed at midnight with a horrible squawking sound. George’s forehead creased at the realization that he had been in the shop so long past closing. His late-night brain-storming sessions usually helped iron out ideas and chase out racing thoughts. Before Fred… well, before everything changed, he would usually fall asleep without issue. Though lately he had found himself feeling a little more reluctant to come up to the flat than normal.
Looking over at the still silent Carl, George found that his friend was already looking at him steadily. Clearing his throat, George levered himself upright and found himself hesitating. For a few months now, the ginger had been seriously considering finding a new place to live.
While changing a few things about the flat, and having someone that didn’t know George as the other half of ‘the twins’, had helped when he was ready to leave the Burrow again… he found that just being back here was hard. Most of his time was spent in the shop, and when he wasn’t there, he was visiting Bill and Fleur at Shell Cottage, or just finding any excuse to avoid the flat when it wasn’t time for sleep or a group lunch with Harry.
George was ready to leave… and realistically Carl was more than capable of taking care of himself. Bloody hell, he basically made sure that when George wasn’t sticking with his family that he actually ate and took care of himself. However, the 4th youngest Weasley had been the one to stumble across the blond when he was basically homeless, jobless, and living in a fog.
After the final battle and all of the funerals, George would often wander around the muggle world. The more unfamiliar areas became a respite from a world echoing with remnants of so much pain. He had begun meandering random neighborhoods and going into the city to just explore. Coming across Carl, in a rather depressing little park on the outskirts of London, had been very unexpected. Speaking with the younger man had him greatly concerned, but the other had sort of shrugged off any sort of worry with alarming casualness. After that initial encounter George felt compelled to visit the same park a few more times. Every single trip had led increasing anxiety and a disheartening suspicion.
After the sixth time he had found the listless Carl just winding his way around the park, he had rather forcefully invited the other to visit his shop. When a few days had passed and the other still hadn’t dropped by, George had enacted what he later told Harry was a ‘reconnaissance and capture’ mission. That was much later: after he had literally shown up in the park, grabbed Carl by the shoulder, smiled in a way that the man had assured him was very creepy, and apparated into Diagon, only to drag him into the shop for a tour.
That had actually been the first time since reopening the shop that George had been inside for longer than an hour. One of the new employees had accidentally caused an entire cage of pygmy puffs to escape their enclosure. The resulting chaos had seemed to shock the dazed blond out of his stupor and Carl had rounded up the puffs with such efficiency that he had been offered a job on the spot. His abilities with any of the shops more sentient merchandise had been Merlin sent.
Two months had passed when the offer of letting his new employee and tentative friend move into the flat came about. There had been no regrets when that happened. Unfortunately, George was more than aware that Carl still had his moments of disassociation, and he was just generally subdued and quiet. Pressing his lips together, he decided that he needed to talk this out with his friend, rather than keeping quiet.
Not sure how to bring the subject up, George fidgeted and twisted his fingers as he asked, “Have you ever thought about the future?”
Tilting his head at the question, Carl replied with his usual neutrality, “I suppose… I have considered taking some classes. Though, not much beyond that. Why?”
Scrunching his face a bit, George understood that he couldn’t be vague about this. Knowing that Carl could also be a bit of an arse about people not getting to the point, he just said, “Well… I’ve been thinking lately… The flat’s been feeling a bit-… stuffy, I guess.”
Carl just stared at him for a moment, before he echoed, “Stuffy.”
George winced at how that might sound, and hurried to clarify, “Not because of you. There’s just been, too many memories and things.”
Carl furrowed his brows for a moment, and George felt like he was stuffing up this conversation royally. Before he could try again though, Carl’s face cleared and he huffed, “You know, I’m not opposed to finding a new place. I’ll always appreciate the way you pulled me out of my own arse,” he snorted at that, “but I knew from the moment I moved in that this wasn’t really home.”
George blinked at the statement and nodded, a few things he had noticed suddenly making a bit more sense. There had been a few times where he had wondered why Carl never really felt the need to make his own space or even just spread out his things into the flat. He found himself smiling wryly, “Guess I was the only one who thought I could just pretend that everything was fine.”
Carl rolled his eyes and responded, “You never did that, numpty, you just needed to figure things out. Same as me.” He deftly ignored the ‘oi’, and the stinging hex George flung at him and smirked, asking, “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain tall, dark, and sexy quidditch player, would it?”
George felt himself heating a bit before snarking back. “No. Git. Just wanted a space where you weren’t haunting my every footstep.” Carl’s smirk got even more smug before he continued haughtily, “Besides, I was thinking of expanding the shop for a few more products and the only direction to go is here.”
The blond snorted before heaving himself up from his seat, “Sure you do, whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night.”
A soft laugh escaped the red-head as his roommate made his way to his bed. Weight seemed to lift of his shoulders at the knowledge that Carl wasn’t upset with him over this. George made his own way to his room for the night and he heard Carl call over, “Night,” before closing the door.
As he got ready for bed and settled in between the sheets, George found that he fell asleep far faster than he had in a long time.
The moving out process was both harder, and easier than he had imagined it would be. Contrary to his flustered denial that night, George was in fact looking for a bigger place so that he could move in with Angelina. While they were going to look for a new place for the both of them, he was moving into his girlfriend’s flat in the meantime. However, when he said that it was also harder, he meant that the world in general wasn’t exactly being pleasant at the moment.
The whispers on the street and the underlying tension back when Harry had finally quit had been more about Death Eaters and sympathizers being on the loose. After his rather famous friend had left the ministry though, well, there were some problems in their government that no amount of bureaucracy or bullshit could hide. The sheer number of pureblood families that had been wiped out, or weren’t imprisoned, had left far too many vacancies in the wizengamot. Departments were filled with wixen who had been either terrified into submission or had zero experience in their chosen work. Then there were the zealots for the so called “light side” that took things too far and had to be reigned in or fired. So, in all parts rather a mess.
It had been around eight years since the Final Battle now and they had come to a small sort of equilibrium that was mostly about maintaining the status quo. This tentative new normal didn’t really change the fact that the efficiency and efficacy of the British Ministry of Magic was at an all time low. The ICW had been trying to inject themselves into the country. This was due to Dumbledore having previously involved himself so heavily in the affairs of foreign nations what with that whole Grindlewald business. However, their ministry was extremely opposed to outside interference, which was causing issues with imports and exports.
George was well aware of this, being a business owner himself. Now, how does this effect his and his Goddess’ search for a home? Well, unless they wanted to live in shouting distance from his mother (which, to be fair, was quite a distance considering how loud she could be), any other purely magical communities were shoring themselves up and setting ridiculous prices on any housing. He was getting some help from Harry on that front, and he had suggested just getting some stretch of unoccupied muggle land so they could ward it, but the problem with that was the sheer expense of proper wards. They could ask Bill, but his expertise was more in the dismantling of wards over the building of them. To top it of, neither he nor Angelina wanted to live in another flat in Diagon, they also didn’t really want to live in the middle of nowhere. The communities that had seemed so promising when they started looking had made this search seem like trying to pry gold off a niffler.
George was sitting at the workbench in his shop, staring at the classified section of the prophet for sales, when Carl walked in from the storefront with a few pygmy puff’s.
“Keep staring at the paper like that and it’ll catch fire, no Seamus Finnigan required,” the blond teased. He was making his way to the terrariums set up along the left side of the crowded space.
George scoffed and was tempted to throw the paper at the other’s head, but didn’t want to risk having the puffs dropped by accident. Instead, he snarked, “Yeah? And I guess you’ll extinguish it with a tea pot?”
Carl rolled his eyes at the childish dig. About three days ago he had been practicing a spell from one of the correspondence courses he was taking and had exploded a tea pot full of water all over the kitchen. “Sure, just like you’ll magically find a new place if you whinge enough about it.”
That pulled a snort from his mouth as he sighed, “Well, I’m starting to think that’ll be the only way we find a place that isn’t a pile of rotten wood.” George shuddered slightly at the last house he and Angelina had seen. The place had been optimistically described as a “fixer-upper”. He had found the holes in the floor, the patchy roofing, and the sheer amount of water damage would require a lot more than a couple of reparo’s to get it back in working order.
Carl looked up as he locked the cage of the terrarium to a chorus of indignant squeaking and frowned a bit. “Well, you’ve been thinking of opening a branch in Ireland, right? Why not look for a place in Kildare? They’ve got that magical district in the old markets, yeah?”
George winced a bit at the question and saw that his friend grew more concerned. “That might have to be put on hold for a bit, mate.”
He could see Carl open his mouth, probably to question what he meant by that, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. Smith, the employee that was seeming more and more promising for a position of Manager, poked his head in, “Ah, boss, your friend Harry is here.”
George found his mouth twitching a bit at the phrasing. Sure, Joshua Smith had initially gone a bit wide-eyed when he realized that the Harry Potter was a regular at the shop. Now, though, he was mostly identified by his relation to his employer than any other moniker.
“Go ahead and send him back before he causes a riot,” George called with a smirk. That earned snorts from both Joshua and Carl, before the former bobbed his head in agreement and left.
Only a few moments passed while Carl went back to tending the puff’s, understanding that for now their conversation was on hold. Though it was about an hour before lunch, Harry had been known to bug off early every once in a while, when his firm was having a slow day.
This thought seemed to be confirmed when Harry opened the door to the workroom with a smile on his face. The sheer amount of stress that had seemed to melt off of Harry after quitting the auror program had been concerning. Sometimes George found that he forgot the huge load of pressure his younger brother’s former best friend had been under during their schooling. When you looked at him now, though, it was obvious just how much the opinions of others had influenced the younger for a long time.
George had lost his light-hearted ability with words when it came to comfort… mostly. The war had hardened him in a way. He tended to be blunter and sharper than he used to be. Where Carl had become sarcastic, and Harry had become more tempered, George had found himself becoming a bit more caustic. Nothing like Severus Snape, mind, but he understood a bit more about the man now that his perspective had been forced to change.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, George looked up to see Carl on his way back out to the main shop area after greeting their younger friend.
Harry looked over and smiled at George. He seemed to notice the paper in his hands and asked wryly, “Having any luck?”
George rolled his eyes a bit and sighed, “About the same amount as usual.”
Harry huffed a laugh and dragged a stool next to the redhead so they could sit beside each other, “Any more ideas on the alternatives? Maybe you could go for a muggle place? They have their own opinions on privacy, and if you find the right neighborhood no one would bother you.”
George smiled slightly at Harry’s reassurance, but replied, “Well, we aren’t in any hurry, honestly. Angelina’s flat mate is actually moving out and we can afford the place easily enough between the two of us…” he trailed off as he searched his younger friends face for a moment.
Harry tilted his head and quirked his eyebrow at George’s silence, “…and?”
A furrow worked its way between the older man’s brows and George found himself debating something that had been niggling at him for a while. Instead of answering the question, he jerked his head to the side to indicate for Harry to follow him and made his way out of the workroom and towards the flat upstairs. Murmuring to Joshua as he passed, the redhead led the way up and started prepping food next to his friend. Scarpering early for their lunch wouldn’t hurt anything, and Carl had been in the middle of something down in the store, which meant he would have an opportunity.
Side-eyeing the black-haired man next to him, George mused aloud, “You know, when I brought up moving out of the flat permanently with Carl, he assumed that I was asking him to move out as well.”
Harry paused, not saying anything, but obviously startled at information that was new to him.
George continued, “He also told me that he had never considered the place home. I get that, though. There was no such thing as home for him or Jack during the war, and then after he just didn’t seem to want to bother about anything, really.”
Harry again chose not to say anything. Letting the silence stretch as they finished the simple prep for pasta, he turned to look at George with a rather blank expression.
Not allowing the silence to deter him, the older Weasley continued blithely, “I actually cleared it up with him, letting him know that I was joking about expanding the shop and he was welcome to let the flat from me. Carl said ‘no’. Said that he wanted to look for a new place for himself. Mostly been sticking to the muggle side of things, but I’m noticing that he’s not very enthusiastic about it. Not sure how to talk about it with him though. You know how he is, right? I’m starting to think he doesn’t want to live by himself, but I don’t know if just a simple flat mate would cut it.”
George turned to look directly at Harry then, who was starting on the sauce while waiting for the water to boil. He didn’t say anything to the redheads not so subtle hinting as he continued to cook whilst the other started to set the table. They didn’t really say anything after that, just preparing the afternoon meal in companionable silence as they waited for another man to join them.