Hopeful Liars

The small girl looked even tinier in the large bed. She had the sheets wrapped up around her neck, clutching them in her small fists and her large brown eyes were bright as she laughed at the antics of her favourite Uncle. Her feet could be seen kicking slightly underneath the heavy duvet and then she yawned, her own body betraying her tiredness.

George Weasley smiled and stopped pretending to be a unicorn and tucked his niece tighter into her bed in the upstairs of Weasley’s Wizardry Wheezes. The room had once been his brother’s but now you wouldn’t think it. The walls were a light shade of pink, and the wallpaper was decorating with beautiful unicorns with glittering horns that cantered and galloped around the walls, but right now lay asleep as if on a hilly pasture. George still remembered the day he had shown Hope her new bedroom in the shop, her squeal of delight as she immediately began to name every single unicorn, her favourite magical creature so far.

She looked up at him now, her face tired but her eyes, Fred’s eyes still bright and inquisitive. Even in these small moments, Hope reminded George of Fred. The love he had for her, the way she had been playing tricks on him since she’d been four years old. Even her laugh bubbled from the centre of her chest the way his did.

George had believed he’d never live through the death of the second half of his soul. He didn’t think he’d ever feel happy again and then he had remembered Hope. Hope who no longer had her mother or her father. Little baby Hope who was depending on the Weasley’s love and guidance to protect her and shelter her from any evil.

And Hope adored her Uncle George among all others, ever since she’d been a baby it had been him that could get her to stop crying, it was George she cried for after the bad dreams of monsters taking away her mommy. It was George that she clung to when she had been inconsolable when she was told that she would never meet her Daddy. And George had wept quiet tears that day as well. He clung to his reminder of Fred as he hadn’t been able to cling onto Fred himself.

Hope cherished her visits to her uncle’s joke shop. Even now at the tender age of six, she loved helping in the shop, sitting on the counter-top and showing prospective buyers how various objects worked. And who couldn’t resist buying something off the ever smiling little girl with her glowing brown eyes, dark shock of raven hair and the spattering of Weasley freckles over her neat little nose. George found sales were better when Hope was in the shop. She was his very own lucky charm.

Indeed Hope Weasley seemed to have more Weasley traits than Silver. She laughed as Odette hadn’t, she never found a reason not to smile, and she craved affection from her grandparents and other relatives. If it wasn’t for her long black hair, she wouldn’t be a constant reminded of her Death Eater turned good mother. Though George had been noticing as she grew, her baby body was becoming more slender like Odette’s, her hair was long and silky and when she was concentrating, her eyes were steady and serious, like her mother’s. And none of them could forget the snake incident.

An elderly witch had come into the joke shop after visiting the apothecary and she had carried a live snake in a wire cage under her arm. George had thought nothing of the pet until he and everyone else in the shop had heard the familiar hisses of Parseltongue. George had closed his eyes in despair when he noticed Hope casually talking to the snake as if it were the most normal thing in the world. She had needed a strict warning afterwards to never do it again. It wasn’t normal, nor right, it was still so soon after the Battle of Hogwarts and the deaths that had been caused by the hand of the Dark Lord were still fresh and raw, as the pang in George’s heart reminded him every time he looked into the eyes of his brother, on his daughter.

Hope yawned again in her bed, and George pushed her hair back, removing her silky green headband, a present from her beloved godfather Draco. It was much too Slytherin for George’s liking.

“Tell me the story Uncle Georgie,” Hope asked him sleepily, her hand moving up to trace the hole where his ear had once been. It had become a comforting gesture of Hope’s, excepting the slight deformity of George’s as others had trouble doing.

“The story of the Princess?” he asked her and she nodded, a small smile on her delicate mouth.

George smiled and began, “Once upon a time, in a kingdom far far away, there was a Princess. She was the beautiful woman in all the surrounding lands and many people came to see her. She had hair that was as long as a house is tall, and the colour was blacker than a raven’s feathers. Her eyes were a dazzling green and from her mouth a beautiful song could always be called upon.

But the Princess was sad. Because she had no-one to share her songs with, her anybody to love her for the person she was, rather than her beauty. Many men asked for her hand in marriage but she refused them all because she did not love them. She waited in her lonely castle for her one true love.”

“And then the prince came,” Hope shouted excitedly, forgetting how tired she was momentarily.

George nodded and smiled, stroking a thumb over Hope’s face, soothing her for sleep, “yes, and then one day, a man appeared. He was tall and strong, and he had hair that was the colour of the setting sun. He had heard of the Princess’s beauty but there was one problem. He was the son of the Princess’s father’s enemy. And the two kingdoms were forever in a raging war.

But as soon as the Red Prince caught eyes with the Black Princess, all the thoughts of hatred between the two were forgotten. Here was the person the Princess had been waiting for, and here was the lady the prince had been searching for. They fell in love, despite what their father’s said.

The two knew that their kingdoms would never accept their love so they married in a small private church in secret where only the Princess’s best friend and the Prince’s more handsome brother were witnesses. They held hands and ran away and were never seen again.”

“Never never again,” Hope murmured sadly, her eyes drooping as sleep began to creep up on her.

“But then one day, a small bundle arrived in the Prince’s kingdom. It was a baby, a gift from the married lovers to their parents. She would bring peace to a world torn apart by war so pretty and bonny was she. And she did. As soon as the baby opened her eyes, and began to laugh at the pretty blue sky, the soldiers put down their weapons in wonder and stopped fighting. The kings and queens met each other, apologising and extending the arm of friendship. And both watched as the little girl grew up and brought even more joy down on their countries.

And they called her Hope,” George whispered as he noticed she was asleep now, “for that is what she brought them. Hope for a better world, and a better future. Goodnight, sweet princess.”

And George kissed his niece on the forehead and with a flick of his wand turned out the light, leaving her to dream of her princess and her prince, together forever.