Si Monumentum Requiris, Circumspice.
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This one is for the grieving.
A/N: [See previous chapter for longer A/N]
Playlist: https://spoti.fi/3Qa1YMD
Playlist Instructions: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/protectgeorgeweasley/686615583096193024?source=share
This is "Inheritance" Part 2/3
AO3 would not let me post a 120k update. [I can't imagine why.] I am laughing so hard at the moment. Anyways. Sorry. If anyone else is bothered by the disruption of our every-other chapter POV switch, know that these three parts are one unit, acting together. [I'm placing the POV tag in to keep from confusing people who skip the A/N, though. <3]
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LUMOS: "Inheritance" (II)II. "Andante"
Hermione
July 21, 2003, 11:12 a.m.
"I never feel stronger after these things," George said. He held a jar of strawberry jam in one hand and blackberry in the other. A quick, home-brewed take on colour changing paste had given him dark brown strands that he'd stuffed under a knitted shield hat—the brim flipped to conceal the label.
They'd ventured down from the safehouse to see a retired, muggle healer on the outskirts of Grindelwald, Switzerland. A foreboding name for a serene place, especially in a world that seemed utterly free of coincidences. Before the appointment, they'd stopped for a bit of shopping.
Hermione rolled her lips under her teeth. Perusing a grocery tick list during the end of the world felt strange. But George needed sweets and killing time with something rote was more appealing than pacing the length of trail before Healer Bacri's cabin.
Beside her, Fleur and Angie held steady watch positions on either side of the trolley, eyes skating the Coop aisles for potential sources of harm. But this climate was different—there were no Merlinsguard cloaks or shouting crowds in the streets. The biggest controversy the Swiss Wizarding Governance had encountered in the prior year was a tariff on imported wand wood.
"Surviving—healing—that makes me feel stronger, but the rubbish memories and nightmares don't have a thing to do with that," he continued. "It's not like suffering it puts mental muscle on me. Doesn't make me any better at magic. And not Occluding's a wrench."
Hermione nodded, faded hum sticking in her throat. She was proud of him for that. A few times, especially at night, his anxieties had gotten so bad that he'd been ill, and she knew he hated her seeing him like that. He didn't want her to worry.
But he hadn't hidden it, either.
So yes, blast it, she was proud of George. She was terribly, terribly proud of him. So proud, her heart squeezed with a warm, tender thump when she took him in.
But George didn't seem to like it when she said as much, and then the conversation turned into what she could expect from him "at a minimum," which entailed "taking care of myself to not make a bad situation worse."
But it was hard, wasn't it? And yet he was still fighting the impulse to tuck it all away. It couldn't be easy. Not with her like this.
She wasn't daft. Pregnancy made her more vulnerable, and likely doubly so in George's eyes. It'd taken Fleur, Bill, Angelina, Fred, and Arthur to all talk George down from his panic at the thought of leaving the safehouse, even though he saw the need for a Healer's appointment just as much as she did. At present, it was still hard to tell which of his behaviors were an aftereffect from their captivity and what was blossoming out of a more general fuss over her condition.
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Lumos
FanfictionHermione doesn't remember marrying or falling in love with her husband. In fact, when the healer asks her if she'd like to see her husband, she thought Ron would walk through the door. Instead, it was George. A stray Obliviate from a dissenting blo...
