The morning air bites at your cheeks as you make your way down Diagon Alley, the cobblestones damp from last night’s rain. It’s been four months since the war, four months since everything changed, and yet the world insists on moving forward. You, however, feel like you’re still stuck in the haze of May—of battle cries, collapsing walls, and the unbearable silence that followed.

You push open the familiar door to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. The bell above the entrance gives its usual cheerful jingle, a sound that feels almost too light, too bright for a place that once pulsed with uncontainable energy. The shop isn’t the same. It can’t be.

George is standing at the counter, his hands resting on its surface, a warm yet weary smile curling at his lips when he sees you. His face is thinner now, brown eyes shadowed and ginger hair messier then usual. But he tries. He always tries.

“Morning,” he says, his voice soft but steady. There’s something comforting in it, even if it feels like half of something whole.

For a moment, you just stand there, clutching the strap of your bag, taking him in. The hole Fred left feels as raw as it did that day in May, and the fact that you’re here—working in this shop, trying to keep things going—feels both right and impossibly heavy.