Junoesque ✿George Weasley✿

70.

"It's bruising quite bad."

George gently turned Blair's head back to it's right position after moving it to see her neck clearly. Purple fingerprints lined her skin from the grubby hands of Fenrir Greyback and were taking their time in fading. The cuts that his claws had sketched into her neck had been healed by the application of Blair's potion, but the same effect didn't seem to work on bruises. It had worked on Fred's gashes that had been caused by the same Death Eater, yet the bruises and closed wounds couldn't be healed for some reason. Luckily, Blair and Fred weren't seriously harmed and were in stable conditions. George had been worried for his brother and girlfriend, but was relieved to have them waking up the next morning groaning from Jasper's loud yowling from not being fed.

"They're really dark, though," Fred added as he leaned forward, seeing the fingerprints that were black in certain parts. "Do they still hurt?"

"Not really," Blair ran her fingers over the bruises with the slightest wince. "They make my neck ache a little bit. But they're bearable."

"Greyback grabbed you hard as well. He could have snapped your neck, Blair," George crouched down so that he could look up at her. He clasped his hands together and hung them between his legs; his concern evident in his furrowed eyebrows and parted lips. He had been terrified when he had seen Greyback lift Blair off of the floor by her neck. Looking back on it, he couldn't believe that he had been able to hold himself together. Fred had been bleeding his life out and Blair had been taking her last breaths.

It hadn't hit him until they had gotten back to The Burrow. Mad-eye had been waiting for them with Molly, Bill and Charlie when George appeared with Blair stuck to his side and Arthur with Fred's arm over his shoulders and Remus and Tonks unconscious next him. Molly levitated the unconscious couple into the house and set up beds for them to rest in until they came to. Bill and Charlie helped their father with Fred and George with Blair. 

Fred only needed rest once Arthur had healed most of his gashes and Blair's potion had worked on the remaining wounds. Mad-eye had made Blair sit down at the kitchen table and asked George to hold her hair up off of her neck, allowing her gruesome skin to be in view. Everyone grimaced at the brutality and thought that she had had her throat crushed. The bruising was already forming and most of her skin had turned black. Veins were prominent and unhealthy looking, as if poisoned and now coursing through the rest of her bloodstream.

"Yikes," Bill exclaimed, the blood leaking out of the five scratches that lined her nape. The outline of Greyback's baseball glove-sized formed around her windpipe and her cheeks were still flushed from the blood that rushed back up to her face once he had dropped her to the floor. 

"I think if Arthur hadn't attacked when he did, you would have passed out within the next second. You might have not woken up either," Mad-eye commented and George gulped at his brashness. He looked down to Blair who sat at the table silently, looking exhausted and ready to collapse into a deep sleep. He had wanted to take her back to the flat so she could rest, but he knew the Order would want a wrap up of what had happened.

Realising how close Blair was to death and how much blood Fred had lost, George needed a cup of tea and a moment to calm his thoughts. Molly had sat down beside him and used some of her motherly magic to make him see that they had made it out alive. She had of course been worried to her core about the mission, but was relieved to find that Fred only needed rest and Blair's bruises would heal in the upcoming months. She worried constantly for the Order, but had developed a strategy to be able to sleep soundly at night. And that was to appreciate what had come back from the missions and not think about what might not have. Sirius's death was an unfortunate and terrible loss, but he wouldn't have wanted people to sit around and cry about him all day. He would want the Order to keep up with their missions and look out for each so that they didn't suffer the same fate.