The Bright Side of Christmas

It is after the war, after all the celebrations and funerals and mourning that followed. After that, after all that (though the mourning never really ends), Harry, Ron, Hermione, and George return to Hogwarts to finish their schooling. Almost everyone from Harry's year returns, their last school year having been disrupted by questionable administration and changes in their syllabus. It seems almost surreal to walk back into a reconstructed Hogwarts with memories of the battle and deaths still fresh in their minds, but amazingly, classes go on as usual.

George has extra classes, owing to the fact that he's forgotten almost everything he learned in his sixth year. He attends these uncomplainingly, still managing to run Weasley's Wizard Wheezes via mail order. For the most part, he's in all of Harry and Ron's classes, struggling, but managing to keep up. He is much more serious than before, putting a lot of himself into his studies. There has been a great change in George - gone is the cheeky prankster, replaced instead by someone more sombre, mature, and a little bit sad. He cannot bring himself to set up any more tricks or pranks, feeling the loss of Fred more than ever if he ever so much as tries. (However, this does not stop Filch from throwing him dirty looks every time he sees the twin, positive that he is up to something.)

Hermione takes pity on him and befriends him, offering to tutor him in his studies. He turns her down - he does things on his own a lot now, longing for the company of none but his twin. Occasionally, though, he goes shyly to her for help on schoolwork he doesn't understand; she teaches him patiently, pleasantly surprised at what a fast learner he is. In time, the two strike up a close, if odd, friendship. At the same time, Ron and Hermione's relationship seems to dissipate. It is a mutual thing, the cessation of kissing, the waning of holding of hands, the less time spent alone together. It's a mutual thing, and they both feel comfortable with it happening.

Nearing Christmas, George returns from a late-night traipse to the kitchens to discover Hermione crying in the empty common room. Getting over his initial shock, he kneels down beside her chair. He conjures up tissues and hands them to her, hoping she doesn't notice his shaky spellwork has caused them to be slightly rumpled. He asks her what is wrong, at a loss as to how to comfort her.

She misses her parents, she says. During Christmas, they would have a tree with fake snow (he laughs a little at that, and she gives a watery smile at the irony of it), and her mother would roast a huge turkey which they would only just be able to finish. There would be Christmas specials on television (George vaguely rememberes his father having one of the box-like devices in the garage), and hot chocolate with marshmallows, and that feeling of peacefulness she never gets at any other time. On Christmas day, they would wake up earlier then usual, wish each other a Merry Christmas, and open their presents together. Then they would coo and laugh and tease, and she just really, really misses her parents.

George tries to convince her that Christmas in the Weasley household wasn't so bad; in fact, it might even be better. They would all gouge themselves on his mother's fantastic Christmas Eve dinner, dress up the gnomes in the garden instead of getting rid of them like his mother wanted, decorate the Burrow with numerous decorative enchantments, set off a few Filibuster fireworks after dinner... It isn't long before George's thoughts are full of Fred, and he is on the verge of tears as well. Hermione seems to understand, and pats his shoulder in a comforting sort of way. He tries to shake himself out of it, feeling ashamed - he is supposed to be doing the comforting.

Hey, he says, it'll be Christmas break soon. She could go find her parents, restore their memory. Spend Christmas together again. His stomach clenches painfully as the last sentence leaves his mouth, but he forces himself to look straight at Hermione and smile. At least one of them could be completely happy this Christmas.

She smiles back, but her smile is shaky and uncertain. After a long pause, she ashamedly admits that she has never done a countercharm of the memory removal spell; she's afraid that she'll mess it up somehow, and her parents are the last people she would want to be victims of her inaptitude.

George smiles. Inaptitude! She is, he reminds her, the brightest witch of her age. She'd probably give McGonagall a run for her money if they were they same age; no, she'd flat-out beat McGonagall, for sure, and she'd probably be much prettier, besides. He expects her to smile, but she doesn't. In fact, she starts to cry again, and he is slightly alarmed.

Why is it, she bites, that people were sometimes more confident of her abilities than she was? They left her no margin of error, no chances to make mistakes at all. What if she did? Wasn't she human? Couldn't she very well botch up the countercharm and leave her parents in a worse state than before? What then? Ending her tirade, she finally takes her furious gaze off George. She looks embarrassed and ashamed, and a blush colours her cheeks beneath the streaks of tears.

George recovers quickly. Tomorrow, he says, they will go to the library. They will research the countercharm, together. They will pull out every book on the countercharm they can find, no matter how seemingly insignificant the reference, and read through everything together. They will practise it until she gets it perfect. They can take as long as she needs, there still being a little over a week to Christmas break, and he'll even let her practise on him if she needs to. She says she wouldn't say that if she were him, and he happily points out that she isn't. She has to smile at that.

He commands her to go to bed then, saying she needs sufficient rest for their task tomorrow. Slowly, she raises herself off the chair, and he gets to his feet carefully, trying to ignore the pain in his knees from kneeling for so long. Looking him in the eye, she murmurs a quiet word of thanks, to which he responds with a smile. What is there to say, really?

They bid each other good night then, and head off to their separate dormitories. George gets ready for bed and slips under the covers, all the time thinking of what he has just gotten himself into. There seems to be no real reason to worry – being in the library couldn't be so bad if she could stand it for hours at a time, and he has complete faith in her spell-casting abilities, even if she doesn't. He will help her perfect the countercharm, find her parents, and have a lovely Christmas. Nothing to it.

Everything will be fine, he tells himself, as he drifts off to sleep. Everything will be fine.