Alone
July, 1998
George always talked to himself as he opened up the shop. He spoke in half-phrases; sometimes he finished a sentence with no audible beginning, while other times he started one and then trailed off. Quite often he looked around him, apparently confused, and then remembered, a flash of pain striking his features. Other times he would suddenly stop in the middle of walking, as though struck by a sudden blow, and carried on after a moment like he hadn't stopped at all.
Angelina felt almost as lost as George looked. It was horrible to watch one of the redheads without seeing the other close behind. Even when she'd been dating Fred and they'd sought some time alone, Angelina was always thrown somewhat off when she saw Fred without George. Still, she reasoned, sitting at Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlour and watching as George put out the displays, the strangeness she felt at seeing one without the other must have been nothing compared with George's feeling of seeing so much empty space where his reflection should have been.
George was trying to pull a display out onto the sidewalk without much success. He shook the display, but it was stuck on a table which lay just indoors. George kicked the display in frustration, then kicked it again. And again. And again, and again…
Angelina rose from the table and hurried across the alley. "George. George," she prompted, shaking his attention away from the display and toward her. "Stop. Let me give you a hand."
He looked over with unseeing eyes at Angelina, then turned away and threw his fist firmly against the wall. Then he swallowed, clenched his teeth, and smiled weakly. "Hullo, Angelina." His voice tried and failed for a conversational tone.
Angelina took out her wand; the display glided seamlessly to its place beside the door to the shop. "Come on," she said, taking his arm and gently pulling him inside. "Let's have some tea and then I'll help you with the displays, all right?"
George mumbled under his breath but allowed her to guide him inside the shop. She sat him down in his office and began to boil some water. "You might encounter less frustration if you just use magic with those displays, you know," she said uncritically.
George nodded and stared at a point on the floor, hands on his knees. "You're probably right," he acknowledged. "Fred and I used to take them out by hand for some reason. Never really thought to use magic, to be honest." He looked at Angelina and smiled the same weak smile. "Can't seem to break old habits."
"Nineteen years of constant company and suddenly it's taken from you? Not something you're going to get used to in a couple of months," she pointed out, careful to use a sympathetic tone.
George snorted lightly. "Your earth logic does not resemble our complex system of..." and he trailed off, realizing his error. His gaze returned to the spot on the floor.
Angelina didn't correct the misused pronoun. Instead, she shoved a cup of steaming tea into his hands and pulled a chair up next to his, resting a hand on his knee and looking him straight in the eye. "He was your brother, your best friend, your partner in crime, your other half. You will never know anyone as well as you know Fred. That will not change. You'll probably think of him every day for the rest of your life – " Her voice hitched and she paused to regain her composure. "And I probably will too," she continued in a whisper. "I miss him too, George. I keep coming out to Diagon Alley in the hopes that maybe I'll see him here, gallivanting around with you, I keep hoping that he'll pop out from around the corner and… and clap some sticker on my back to make me appear entirely purple to everyone but myself or something. I hope so desperately some days that I… I hallucinated, that maybe… maybe I didn't see him…"
She choked again, and suddenly she was being brought to her feet by strong arms which wrapped themselves delicately around her. Immediately reminded of Fred's hugs, of equal comfort and surprising gentleness, and she buried her face in George's chest and let the silent sobs shake her shoulders. He hugged her tighter, tears rolling down his own face.
"I forget, sometimes, you know," he said hoarsely, "that other people miss him. I just feel so shockingly alone…." He broke off, only this time he didn't expect Fred to finish the sentence for him. At last he had said it: he was alone. Sobs racked his own shoulders; he clung tight to Angelina until Ron tore into the office five minutes later, panicked that somebody else had died.
After that, George spoke mostly in complete sentences.