Finding Fun In Otherwise Dreary Places
Hermione walks down to the hotel lobby the next morning to find it empty. She makes her way to the armchairs she and George have taken to occupying in the mornings and takes a seat, head swiveling.
A yawning man sits behind the front desk, absorbed in a book and not bothering to look at her. The dining area where breakfast will be served sits dark, chairs empty. Even the hallway leading to the elevators looks more open than usual, as though advertising its bareness.
Hermione sighs and takes out the creased Sydney map and her notebook, settling into her chair.
When they had parted the night before, both a little lighter from the night in town, they had agreed to leave at nine o’clock the next morning to try and visit another seven towns. Despite the lightness of the evening, sleep had evaded Hermione. Her night had once again been filled with sounds and images she could not escape. Evidently, George’s had not.
Hermione runs her finger along the faded map and checks her watch. 5:43. George will meet her down here soon, she tells herself. She doesn’t need to worry.
Her goodwill lasts through breakfast, then begins to give way to annoyance. Hermione eats her eggs through gritted teeth, searching for George’s face among the stream of people beginning to mill about the lobby.
As the clock on the wall reads nine, her annoyance starts to bleed into anger. Hermione folds the map and shoves it into her bag along with her notebook and stomps to the elevator. This was just the reason she had been against going into wizarding Sydney. They can’t afford distractions and late starts. They can’t afford to lose focus.
She punches the fifth floor button on the elevator and crosses her arms. When the doors open with a ding, she stalks down the hallway until she stands in front of George’s door.
Hermione lifts her hand and raps on the door.
Silence.
She knocks again, louder this time, a kernel of panic beginning to blossom in her brain.
What if George isn’t in his room at all? What if he left in the night, disgusted with her? What if he was dragged off somewhere she won’t be able to find him?
Hermione continues knocking, throwing her knuckles against the door as hard as she can. She hears some shuffling, and then a thump, before the door swings open so suddenly she nearly loses her balance.
George stands before her in his boxers and a t-shirt, hair tousled, red lines crossing his cheek where it had pressed against the pillow.
“Sorry,” he says, his voice gravelly from sleep. He rubs a hand down his face and takes a step backwards into the room. “Was up late—lost track of time—must’ve fallen asleep—”
“That’s okay,” Hermione says quickly. She tucks her hands to her side, her face softening because he is so obviously tired, and so obviously trying to wake himself up. “A few minutes won’t hurt.”
“Come in,” he says gruffly.
She steps primly into the room, doing her best to tamp down the steady flush rising to her cheeks. The door slams shut behind her, the sound seeming to echo in the space between them. Hermione bites the inside of her cheek and looks at the floor.
George snatches the duffel bag sitting in the corner of the room and rummages around it before extracting a pair of jeans and a shirt.
As George dresses, Hermione lets herself look about the room. Other than the unmade bed and the duffel bag on the floor, there is almost no sign the room is occupied at all. Like her, George seems reluctant to settle in.
“I just need to brush my teeth,” he murmurs from the bathroom.
Hermione nods. “Alright.”
She hears the faucet run and takes a step to stand near the entryway. Her eyes drift from the floor to the desk near the bed. A folded piece of parchment sits on the desktop, nearly every inch of it covered in writing.
She walks towards the desk, picking up the parchment and reading it curiously. It is a list of items, some sounding odd, some vague. Pygmy powder, love bites (gum), shield jewelry??. Joke shop products, she guesses, items that are in production or soon to be. Annotations and notes written in two distinct hands are crammed into the margins of the parchment, much of the writing viciously crossed out.
The faucet in the bathroom turns off, and George strides back into the room, his hair combed and his face freshly shaved. “All ready,” he says.
In response, Hermione holds up the piece of parchment. “New products of yours?”
George’s expression goes through a series of acrobatics. His brows crash down and his mouth pinches before smoothing a moment later. He ambles over to her and grimaces, plucking the parchment from her hands.
“Yeah,” he says shortly, his eyes sweeping over the page. He folds the parchment and then seizes the duffel bag from the ground, stuffing the parchment to the bottom. “Ideas for products we were thinking about before—before everything happened.”
George runs a hand through his hair and turns away from her, eyes still locked on the duffel bag in his hands. Hermione takes the hint, letting the subject drop. She glances back towards the duffel bag in George’s hand where he had dropped the list with such venom, wondering what it was, exactly, he hadn’t wanted her to see.
“Are you ready to go, then?” George asks abruptly.
Hermione starts and nods. “Yeah,” she says. “I have everything.”
He nods. Kneeling, he takes out his wand and zips the duffel bag closed. With a flick of his wand the duffel bag transforms into the black knapsack she has seen him carry nearly every day. George opens the knapsack, stows his wand inside, and then swings it onto his shoulder.
Hermione frowns at him. “You transfigure your bag every day?”
George glances at her and shrugs. “Yeah.”
Hermione peers curiously at the knapsack dangling from his arm. “It would be easier to just do an extension charm, wouldn’t it?” She gestures to her own bag. “Then you don’t have to do the spell every time.”
George shakes his head. “I’ve always found Transfiguration more natural than Charms. Dunno why. If I tried to cast an extension charm on this without oversight it would just end up looking like it belonged to Hagrid.”
Hermione opens her mouth to reply, looking again at his bag. She could do the extension charm for him, she wants to say. She can help him.
George steps past her and opens the door, nodding towards the hallway. “Let’s go. We’re already behind schedule.”
Hermione closes her mouth, frowning at him for a moment before she sighs and follows him out of the room. The door slams closed behind her, and they set off for another day of searching.
***
They make it to three towns west of Sydney before they stop for lunch. By now they have distilled their distraction and surveillance routine down to such a delicately orchestrated dance they can be in and out of a town in less than an hour, provided the public library is easy to find.
After they eat, Hermione takes George’s hand and apparates them to the next town on the list, landing steadily in the corner of a parking lot behind a squat building. They hurry towards the sidewalk and then meander to the front of the building, taking in the faded sign for the community library.
They enter the library without a word, smiling and waving pleasantly to the small woman behind the front desk. Hermione steps away from George under the guise of inspecting a table of newly released fiction books near the front, while he makes his way to the maze of bookshelves around the corner.
It doesn’t take long for the familiar bangs and shrieks to fill the space, complete with billowing smoke. Hermione hears the woman behind the desk gasp as the few patrons who had occupied the space scurry away.
Again, Hermione watches out of the corner of her eye as the woman leaves the desk and then slips behind it, crouching low as she inspects the screen. By now she has become familiar with the handful of software systems most of the public libraries use, and she breathes in relief when she realizes she recognizes the screen.
She navigates to the list of patrons, searches for all those with surnames starting with W, examines the emerging list of names and street addresses. She drags the mouse to the top of the screen, and prints the list.
She walks away from the desk, paper in hand, before the second decoy detonator even goes off. She waits behind the bookshelves until George emerges from the chaos, smoothing his shirt and straightening his bag on his shoulder.
“Got it?” he asks, looking towards the printer paper in her hand.
Hermione nods. “Let’s find somewhere to sit.”
They find an empty table tucked in an alcove near the back of the building. Hermione drops into a chair and spreads the paper out across the table, pushing the last two sheets in front of George.
“I must say, Granger,” George says as he shucks off his bag and leans back in his chair, “this whole endeavor has been an incredible testing opportunity for the detonators. I’ve loads of ideas of how we can enhance them.”
“So glad I could help,” Hermione replies dryly. She takes the first page of the printed list in her hands and begins to read, her finger skimming over the rows of names and addresses.
She can hear George shuffling beside her, his head dipping as he reads.
She skims the first page, then goes back to read it again. She cannot miss anything. She cannot make a mistake.
“Hermione?”
She glances up, her hand flattening against the table as she leans forward. “Yes?”
“William Wilkins doesn’t mean anything to us, does he?”
She swallows, her eyes drifting back down to her fingers. “No.” She shakes her head. “No, he doesn’t.”
She goes back to reading through her own pages. Her eyes comb each row, stopping to absorb each orderly little letter.
Finally, she admits defeat. She leans back in her chair and lets out a heavy breath.
Nothing. Another dead end.
“Well,” George says, shoving aside the papers in front of him. “On to the next, then.”
Glancing over her shoulder, Hermione takes out her wand and vanishes the pages. “On to the next,” she repeats.
“I’m hoping the next library has a bit more to it,” George muses as Hermione bends to retrieve her bag. “I liked the one we saw last week, the one with the fish tanks. I could’ve stayed there all day.”
Hermione snorts and shakes her head as she remembers George’s delight at the large tanks housing a variety of colorful fish. “I know you could have. I nearly had to drag you out of there.”
“What can I say? I love a little bit of wildlife to entertain me while I’m doing research. It’s marvelous.”
The corner of Hermione’s lips curls into a smile. “You’re very easy to entertain, you know that?”
George shrugs, face splitting into a grin. “It’s a learned skill, Granger. Don’t underestimate how valuable it can be.”
She raises her eyebrows, settling her bag in her lap. “Oh?”
“Yeah.” George nods, stretching an arm behind his head and tipping back in his chair. “You spend enough time in detention and you get pretty good at finding fun in otherwise dreary places.”
Hermione lets out a soft laugh. “How much time do you have to spend in detention, exactly, to build up that skill?”
George winks at her. “Far more than you ever did, I’m sure.”
“I’m probably going to regret asking this,” she says, brushing her hair over her shoulder, “but how many detentions have you had? You’ve made me curious now.”
George pauses, cocking his head to the side as he thinks. “Sixty eight,” he says after a moment.
Hermione gapes at him. “Sixty eight?”
“Yup,” George nods, smirking at her. “Really, a modest number when you think about it.”
“But that’s so many!”
“Not all of them were necessarily my fault.” He shrugs. “We had a pact, you see, since third year. If one of us got caught we’d say the other twin did it. We thought it would help get us out of trouble.”
Hermione raises an eyebrow. “And did that work?”
“It rather backfired to tell you the truth.” He runs a hand through his hair, his expression growing foggy as his eyes drift past her shoulder. “Most of the time teachers just gave us both detention to be safe.”
She chews her lip, her voice melting into a murmur. “It’s still not a bad idea.”
“Maybe not, but I think I got the short end of the deal.” George gives a rueful smile, and Hermione arches an eyebrow.
“Because you caused less trouble?”
“Nah.” He shakes his head, expression flickering. “I was better at not getting caught.”
He leans back, his arm dropping down to his side as he enters a world she cannot see. His forehead crinkles and eyes close briefly, and she doesn’t have to ask to know what he is thinking about.
She wonders what trouble the twins had caused at school, what pranks and mischief she hadn’t been privy to. She wonders if George takes comfort in those memories of chaos, the way she takes comfort in her childhood books.
George brings his head down into his hands, hunching over the library table, and Hermione almost goes to him before she stops herself. He will not want her intruding, trying to comfort him. She will only be a nuisance.
She wishes, in a brief, striking moment, that she could follow him wherever he is going. Just so he doesn’t have to go alone.
After several seconds of heavy silence Hermione rises, her chair scraping loudly against the linoleum floor. George starts, eyes flashing up to her. He looks like he had forgotten she was there, had forgotten anything else existed around him. Hermione knows the feeling.
She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t touch him or make a face. She slides her chair back into position and then bends to pick up George’s bag from the ground.
“Come on,” she says softly, holding the bag out to him and gesturing towards the door. “Let’s get out of here.”
George pauses before slowly getting to his feet and taking his bag from her.
They make their way to the front door and out into the sunlight. Hermione watches with no small amount of wonder as the lines on George’s forehead smooth themselves and the pinched hold of his mouth relaxes against the cool afternoon breeze. It’s as if the gods have shone a light on him, sending the shadows scurrying away.
George adjusts his bag on his shoulder and glances at her over his shoulder, offering a taut smile. “Well, Granger, any way we can make sure the next place has fish? Or at least a cat?”
Hermione pauses, feeling off-kilter from the comment, his hasty shift back into the cheerful, joking George.
He watches her, brows furrowing. “What—”
“How do you do that?” Hermione asks abruptly, frowning at him.
George raises his eyebrows. “Do what?”
She runs a hand over her hair. “Brush things off. Ignore how terrible everything is and make jokes and act like—like everything’s normal.”
She bites her lip and slants a glance at him. George’s expression sharpens, the smile fading.
Hermione takes a breath and looks away. “I feel like I’m always on the edge of breaking down—always about to fall apart and you’re just—” she trails off, taking a deep breath.
George’s jaw tightens. “You think I don’t feel like breaking down?” he asks in a low voice.
Hermione shakes her head. “No—you just—how do you pull yourself back like that? Get up and still go through the day smiling and joking? Like everything’s alright.”
George runs a hand through his hair, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “Would you rather I spent all day shut up in a room letting myself go mad, like before?”
She shakes her head again. “No—that’s not—”
“Would you rather I sit down each morning and tell you that everything’s terrible, and everything hurts all the fucking time? That I haven’t felt like a whole person since the battle?”
“George—” Hermione catches him by the arm, stopping him in the middle of the sidewalk. George’s eyes land on her like steel on a flint. Hermione steps closer.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to be rude. I just—” she heaves a breath and chews her lip. “I know you have to feel ready to fall apart at any moment, too. And somehow you—”
She catches his eye, and lets the rest of the sentence die in her throat. She swallows it, starting again, the words feeling like they’re clawing their way out of her. “I don’t want you to—if you’re doing it for my sake—trying to cheer me up or thinking I need you to always be joking to keep me sane—you don’t have to. You being here is enough.”
She looks down at her feet, eyes tracking the jagged cracks in the sidewalk, and shrugs. A ribbon of heat winds up her neck and around her cheeks. “And you can talk to me, you know. If you—if you want.”
George swallows and tugs his arm from her grasp. Hermione bites her lip, gaze still downward. She has overstepped, she thinks. She shouldn’t have said anything. She should have left it alone.
George brings his hand down to catch Hermione’s, wrapping his fingers around hers, and squeezes. “Thanks,” he says, voice catching.
She looks up, finds his eyes trained on her, and nods. She can feel his calloused palms and fingers pressed against her skin, the warmth bleeding into her.
She chews her lip, fighting the urge to avert her eyes. “Of course.”
George studies her for another moment, and Hermione feels herself take a shaking breath. His eyes track down her face, the blue and green flecks swirling around each other like waves in a pool.
She shifts closer. She tightens her fingers around his palm, and wonders if the callouses scraping against her skin came from flying. She can’t remember now, what he’s like when he’s on a broom, though she knows she must have seen him fly during school quidditch matches. She wishes she had paid more attention.
George’s eyes come up to meet hers again, and he releases her hand, taking a step back so quickly she would have thought he’d been stung.
“Anyways,” George says, clearing his throat and adjusting his jacket. “We should revisit the map tonight. Figure out what our plan is for the next few weeks. We should be just about finishing up the West Sydney area, shouldn’t we?”
Hermione forces herself to nod, her now empty hand coming up to play with the ends of her hair. “That’s a good idea. We can figure out how we want to approach the towns to the south.”
George puts his hands in his pockets and begins to follow the sidewalk towards the back of the building. “What do you think of getting takeaway and eating at the hotel? We can spread out and do some planning there.”
Hermione purses her lips, pausing for a moment before she nods. “That will work.”
“Excellent.”
They turn into the parking lot and make their way to the back. George stops as they reach the furthest corner and turns to face her, eyes flicking once again across her face. “Ready?”
He holds out his hand and Hermione takes it, feels the heat of his fingers as they engulf hers. She gives a short nod and takes a breath as they disapparate.
***
They stop at a takeaway hamburger restaurant before walking to the hotel. Hermione drops into a chair in the lobby and takes the styrofoam containers out of the plastic bag, pushing two of them in front of George.
“You have the map?” he asks.
Hermione nods and dips down to retrieve the folded map from her bag, dropping it into the table next to the food.
George nudges the crumpled paper to the side and opens the container holding his burger and chips. “How long do you think it will take us to visit all the towns in metropolitan Sydney? It seems like we have to be getting close.”
Hermione sighs as she tears the wrappings away from her burger and brings it to her mouth. “I don’t know,” she says after a beat. “A month, maybe? If we’re able to keep the same pace that we have now.”
George nods, chewing contemplatively. “I’ve been thinking about that,” he says. “The pace, I mean.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” He swallows and pops a chip in his mouth. “I think the strategy’s working well, so far. We haven’t run into too many problems.”
Hermione smiles. “Other than there not being enough animals at some libraries.”
George glances up at her. “True. But that’s a problem far bigger than either of us can solve in one night, Granger.”
Hermione rolls her eyes and takes a bite.
“I’ve been thinking about how much time it takes to find each library and get a list of people who use it,” George continues. “It seems like there ought to be a faster way. Something that’s simpler, more efficient.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
“No.” George grimaces and shakes his head. “And it’s quite annoying.”
“Well,” Hermione nibbles on a chip. “We’ll just keep going as we are, then, and see if we can think of anything.” She catches George’s eye. “I’ve also been thinking.”
“So I figured.”
“Do you still have your fake galleon from the DA?”
George raises his eyebrows, evidently surprised by the question. “I don’t think so,” he says. “Why?”
Hermione purses her lips. “I thought about it this morning when you weren’t in the lobby like you usually are. I was worried something had happened to you—you’d been attacked or carted off somewhere—and I realized if that happened we would have no way to communicate with each other, no way to check if the other person is alright.”
George sits back, mouth curling into a roguish smile. “Were you worried about me, Granger?”
“Yes,” Hermione doesn’t bother trying to hide the fact. “I was. Wouldn’t you be worried if I didn’t come down in the morning and you had no way of knowing if someone had attacked me in my room?”
“Ah.” George glances at the table, looking somewhat abashed.
Hermione narrows her eyes. “What?”
“Hm? Nothing.”
“You’re making a face. What are you making that face for?”
George sighs and looks at her, picking up a chip from his container. “Promise you won’t get upset.”
Hermione’s frown deepens. “What is it?”
George takes a breath and drops a chip back on top of the styrofoam. “I wouldn’t worry someone attacked you in your room, because I check each night to make sure everything’s okay and to put up protective spells.”
Hermione blinks. “What?” she asks, feeling slightly stupid.
“I just go to the door a few hours after we get back. To check that everything’s alright and to add a few wards to make sure nobody will break in.” His eyes flick up to meet hers, and Hermione notices a faint pink flush spreading over the tips of his ears. “I—er—one of the wards is an alarm that will go off if the door or window is opened from the outside. So if someone tries to force their way in I’ll know.”
Hermione stares at him, unsure what to say.
A gentle ache spreads through her chest, like she has held her breath for too long and just took the first, painful gulp of air. She catches her bottom lip with her teeth as she watches George, trying to think of something to articulate the odd rush of warmth welling inside her.
“Thank you,” she says at last. “You really didn’t have to do that.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of my being here?” George quirks an eyebrow and gives a tight smile. “To make sure you’re safe.”
Hermione shrugs. “And also to keep me company.” She swallows and shifts in her chair, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “You were right, what you said at the Burrow before we left. I think I’d go mad if I had to be here all alone.”
George nods slowly, eyes drifting back towards the table. “Nobody likes to be alone.”
He looks so sad as he says this, Hermione feels her heart stutter.
As George returns to his hamburger and picks at the remaining chips, it occurs to Hermione that George Weasley likely does not have much experience being alone. She racks her brain trying to think of a time before the battle when she saw him by himself, without Fred.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” she asks suddenly.
George’s head tilts up, and his gaze settles on her. “If I say no, are you still going to ask?”
She shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
George pauses, then ducks his head. “Alright then.”
“Are you planning to reopen the joke shop when we get back?”
George’s face darkens. He shoves a chip in his mouth and sets his elbows on the table, scowling at the scuffed laminate surface.
Hermione bites the inside of her cheek, wondering if he is going to start shouting at her for being nosy.
When he looks back up at her, George’s face has taken on the blank mask. “I really don’t know if I’ll reopen,” he says, voice wavering.
Hermione tilts her head to the side, face softening as she peers at him. “Why not?”
George slumps slightly in his seat. He pushes a chip around the container in front of him, the mask obscuring his expression flickering. “I want to,” he murmurs. “I don’t want it to just sit there empty. We put so much work into it—I don’t want that all to be for nothing. But I—”
He looks up and meets her eye, a thin veil of pooling tears distorting the familiar blue. “The shop was something we thought of and made happen together. It was always our thing. I don’t know if it’s my thing.”
Hermione swallows and nods, reaching over the table and taking his hand. George’s fingers wrap around hers, holding tight.
“I don’t know what else I’d do, though,” he mumbles. “If I didn’t have the shop.”
“You’d find something.” Hermione squeezes his hand. “I’m sure you would.”
George gives her a thin smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
He retracts his hand from hers, and Hermione studiously looks away as he wipes his eyes with his knuckles.
“So you want to come up with some way for us to check in on each other from separate places?” he asks, his voice taking on a lighter tone than before.
Hermione straightens in her seat and nods. “Ideally one that doesn’t require either of us to have our wands.”
“Right.” George pauses. “I might have to think about that.”
“Okay.” Hermione twists her fingers together in her lap, her eyes bouncing everywhere in the room except George’s face. “And, for the record, you don’t need to check my door every night. I’d rather you get some sleep.”
George shrugs. “I don’t sleep much anymore. At least this way I can feel a little better knowing you’re alright.”
“Well, then, I suppose—” Hermione bites her lip. “I suppose there’s no harm, then.”
“Great.”
Hermione leans back, her hands still twisted in her lap. She runs through each finger, cracking the knuckles so the joints feel loose, disconnected. Silence hangs between them, and she wants to break it, to continue talking. But every sentence that pops into her brain seems at once too heavy and too meaningless.
Across from her, George closes the styrofoam takeaway containers and shoves them back in the plastic bag. His eyes spring from his hands to Hermione’s face and back again, his mouth opening every few seconds.
To her relief, he finally says something.
“So, do you have any ideas on how we can persuade some of these libraries to invest in wildlife to entertain their devoted user base?”
Hermione’s hands still, and a sharp laughing breath escapes her lips. “Not right at this moment,” she says, setting her arms on the table and propping her chin in her hand. “But if we put our heads together maybe we can think of something.”
“I think it’s our top priority right now,” George says with a sage nod. “We should have a plan in place before we go on visiting these other towns. We wouldn’t want to miss this wonderful opportunity in front of us.”
The corner of Hermione’s mouth curls, and she shakes her head. “No, we really wouldn’t.”
She watches as George leans over the table, again examining the map of Sydney. She sees him trace the veiny roadways with the pad of his index finger, following the pathway that over the next several weeks they themselves will take as they try to find her parents.
She marvels again at how calmly he carries his grief every day, how he manages to fit it all under his clothes and stand up tall when she feels like hers hangs off her in misshapen lumps, constantly falling under her feet and tangling around her throat. She wonders if she asked him if he would let her carry some of his, just for a moment. Just long enough for him to remember what the lightness feels like.
She thinks again about the warmth of his hand. She wonders if he knows she would have stood in front of the library for as long as he wanted today, just holding onto his hand while he collected himself.
She wonders what it felt like for him that afternoon to momentarily have her palm pressed against his own.