Cast Aside

Death Eaters and Wheezes

A/N So, it's been a minute. The last two weeks have been nuts. My sweet little Coraline was born Sunday, November 7th. Two days later on the 9th, my grandfather passed away. The next day my husband and I tested positive for Covid. Since I've had writers block for a while anyway, I decided to pause uploading amidst the chaos that was my life. Still not really inspired to write, so I'll probably drop it to once a week until I get over that, I don't want to upload too fast in case I need to change something. Anyway, hope you all like this chapter!  

Chapter 14

Unable to take any direct action against Voldemort until after Snape finished school, the next several weeks dragged by. All George wanted was to end the bloody war so he could get on living his life. Before when war had loomed over his future, there had been Fred and their shop. There had been real work to be done against Voldemort and they'd both felt stupidly invincible. Now there was only a nagging fear that everything he wanted might be taken from him again.

Part of him resented the fact that so much rested on Snape. The only horcrux within their reach would be the last they went after and with Kreacher not due to help hide the locket for nearly a year, he was beginning to feel more than a little frustrated. If he had Hermione or Snape's skill with occlumency he thought he might even join his former potions professor as a spy if only to move things along.

When he'd suggested as much to Hermione, she had grown very serious. "I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone, George but Snape has already taken the mark. Do you really think you could do the kinds of things he'll have to do in order to survive as a Death Eater?"

At the time he'd said no, but that was two weeks ago. With the Death Eaters growing ever bolder, George was beginning to wonder exactly what it was they were doing trying to end the war early if they weren't taking more advantage of their foreknowledge. Working for Dumbledore, no one worked with Dumbledore, was out of the question. But there had to be something they could do.

Despite beginning to feel a bit like Sirius must have felt trapped in Grimmauld, he and Hermione managed to find things to occupy their time. Whenever Gideon and Fabian had equally free evenings, they would duel in their back garden. His uncles were extremely skilled—as he'd known they were—but facing off against their truly impressive tandem dueling style pushed them to their limits. It wasn't actually useful to the war effort, but staying in fighting shape kept them prepared and sane.

Near the end of May an owl arrived from Hogwarts. The note was short and to George's eyes, nonsense, written in some kind of code of lines and dots. Fortunately Hermione recognized it.

"Oh... Morse code. Um..." She stared at the note for several minutes before sighing in defeat. "I recognize it but unfortunately I don't have it memorized. I'm a little impressed Severus actually does."

George sat forward in his chair. "So... it's a muggle thing? Is there like a book or something on this you could get?"

"A book?" Scoffing, she grabbed her nearly ever present beaded bag. "Of course there is. Oh, this is perfect. We need to get out of here before we go mad anyhow. Let's go to London for the book and then we can get lunch at the Leaky before we come back!"

Happy to do anything that felt like progress, he sprang up from where he sat and followed her out.

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Sitting at a back corner table in the crowded hall of the Leaky some time later, Hermione cast a muffliato and pulled out Snape's note. Looking between the slim, new book and the note, translating the dots and dashes with a muggle pen, a smile gradually spread across her face.