Summer had been truly horrible.

Of course, you had volunteered to spend it with Harry. Someone needed to stay close, someone the Order trusted, and Fred and George were far too likely to slip and use magic without thinking, especially since they were now of age. And as Hermione had pointed out, it would look suspicious if an adult suddenly took up residence at Privet Drive.

So yes, you’d volunteered. You just hadn’t known how bad the Dursleys truly were.

Harry’s startled look when you’d arrived—his genuine disbelief that they’d allowed you to stay at all—should have warned you. Still, you’d told yourself you could handle it. You’d faced worse things than a narrow-minded Muggle family who pretended the wizarding world didn’t exist.

But the Dursleys denied everything. Magic wasn’t just forbidden; it was treated as if it were contagious. And all communication with the outside world had to be done through letters, sent and received at carefully spaced intervals.

And then there was the room. They hadn’t been willing to spare another bedroom for “your kind,” so you were crammed into the little room that was Harry’s. An air mattress had been shoved onto the floor with barely enough room to walk around it.

This meant sleeping far too close to Harry, shoulder to shoulder in the stifling heat, the air thick with silence and things neither of you said out loud. Harry fell asleep easily, exhaustion claiming him most nights.

But you didn’t. Most evenings, you lay awake staring at the ceiling, tracing the cracks in the plaster and pretending—just for a moment—that it was George beside you instead. George’s warmth, George’s voice, George’s stupid jokes murmured in the dark.

So when the dementors came, you weren’t exactly glad. You weren’t a monster. Harry could be expelled. But you weren’t entirely devastated either. Because he had to go to a hearing. And the hearing meant London. And London meant the Order. And the Order meant George.

The ride there was miserable. You’d been on watch the entire broom ride to London, your muscles locking with cold. Moody barked instructions from somewhere ahead, Tonks’s laughter drifted faintly back despite everything. By the time the rooftops of London appeared beneath you, your fingers were numb.

Twelve Grimmauld Place came into view and you felt your stomach jolt excitedly.

The door opens, and there he was.

George stood just inside the threshold, half-lit by the dim hallway, hair as red as ever, eyes sharp and instantly softening when they found you behind Harry.

“Hiya, love,” he said, his grin crooked and unmistakably his. “Bloody hell—you look like you’re the one who ran into the dementors. Look right awful, you do.”

If there was one thing you’d missed more than anything this summer, it was that: George’s easy teasing, the warmth beneath it, and that stupid grin.