In the Melancholy Moonlight, Part 5: Dark Matter

Chapter 267: S.O.S.

A/N: Hi everyone! I'm so sorry this update is late, I had a mental health emergency last week and needed time to decompress and recover. I tried to write this chapter last week in the middle of said emergency, genuinely, I was trying very hard for two days, but the quality was not up to my usual standard and my best friends were kind enough to remind me that taking a break would not be committing a sin, so I missed a week, and I'm sorry for that. I hope this chapter was worth the wait — I ended up changing my original plan for this chapter, actually, to make it a happier experience overall. And without further ado, I hope you enjoy, thank you for your endless patience with me, I love you so very much. <3

🩵💛❤️💜🩷

GEORGE:

Snow blanketed London. It was wrong. It wasn't supposed to snow in London, not in the morning, not during the first week of December.

Henry had explained it to me once. London had so many people in one place, all living, all walking and driving and working and drinking, that it was warmer than the surrounding countryside. It only really snowed at night, late in winter, because there was so much love in London earlier in the winter, when the sun was keeping watch even behind the clouds, that it kept the snow at bay. Snow belonged to the dead of winter, snow belonged to the night, snow belonged to the moments when love was found only in bedrooms, from intimate beds shared to anxious bedside vigils, because the world was too cold and too dark for those who loved and were loved to brave the dangerous outside world.

But Henry was gone, and I wasn't sure if I'd ever felt so alone, just me, just George, against the blank white background of snow in London, because London was losing its love and snow had found us, even in December, even as the sun was rising somewhere in the east.

The snow kept falling outside as I went about my day, making the whole world bleak and cold and lifeless outside the shop. I left Fred to the mail orders and offered to go check on the owls and the pygmy puffs, which I realized was a mistake as soon as I descended the stairs into the storefront. I felt trapped enough on a normal day, but the colorful shop contrasted so starkly with the never-ending sheets of white outside that I was worried I was going to genuinely go insane because of just how profoundly lonely I was.

Everywhere I turned, I was faced with reminders of my solitude. Lucy and Henry and Archie had touched every part of the store. Their absence ached like a physical pain. I saw Lucy's smile in my mind as the pygmy puffs squeaked their greetings at me. I heard Henry's laugh as I reorganized the profanity fireworks in alphabetical order. And as I straightened the Shield Hats, I vividly remembered the sarcastic laugh Archie barked out, his face newly scarred, as he commented on the fact that it would have been nice to have a Shield Hat at the Bats match.

I, perhaps self-destructively, lingered in the shop for quite a while, feeding the pygmy puffs individually and reorganizing and straightening products unnecessarily. By the time I decided to return to the flat, I was so hungry the growling of my stomach was mocked by the pygmy puffs, so I reached for a pot and a box of pasta without so much as a glance at Fred.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Fred asked after a beat of silence.

"I charge Galleons," I replied without turning around.

"Add it to my tab. What's on your mind?"

I sighed and set the pot down, bracing myself against the counter, unable to bring myself to face my twin.

"Being trapped here," I started haltingly. "Being trapped in a cycle where every day has been the same, I've... forgotten isn't the right word. I've missed just how much time has passed. It's snowing, Fred, the seasons are changing, and everyone's still... gone. Somewhere out there, Henry's camping in the snow, and Archie, and the others too, presumably. The seasons are changing, yet nothing has changed, we're just as hopeless and despairing as we were a couple months ago. It's been months. I knew that, objectively, but now I feel the months that have passed while we've just been sitting here doing nothing."