The Burrow had never felt so loud in its silences. Pots clattered, clocks ticked, and still George could hear it—that yawning absence where Fred’s laugh should have been. He’d grown used to the way his chest tightened whenever someone accidentally set out an extra plate or mentioned the twins as though they were still a pair. What he hadn’t grown used to—what he thought he might never grow used to—was seeing you folded into it all.

You’d been coming here for years, welcomed like one of their own long before the war had burned everything raw. Fred had always walked through the Burrow’s door with you beside him, his grin stretching too wide whenever your hand slipped into his. Everyone knew it. Everyone adored you for it. That hadn’t changed, not even now. Molly had pulled you close like her own, Arthur gave you his gentle smiles, Ginny slept with you sometimes when the nights were too long. And George—George watched.

He watched the way grief hollowed your eyes, how sometimes you drifted so far away it was as if you weren’t in the room at all. He watched you slip into the bedroom he used to share with Fred and curl into the sheets that still smelled faintly of him. The first time George had found you there, he’d nearly broken in two. Because he understood. Merlin, he understood.

And tonight—tonight was no different. Except it was.

The rest of the house had gone quiet hours ago. Ron snoring soft as a saw through the wall. George had found you in the kitchen, staring at a half-empty mug of tea gone cold, your fingers trembling against the rim. He didn’t ask questions. Just nudged your shoulder, muttered, “C’mon, love. You’ll freeze in here.”

Upstairs, in his room, you’d sat on the edge of his bed first. Talking. That was all it ever started as—words spilling out into the dark. How sometimes you swore you could still hear him coming down the stairs. George listened, jaw tight. Because your words made it more real than even the grave.

When your voice broke, so did his resolve.

“Don’t—” George whispered hoarsely, sliding closer, “don’t do that thing where you disappear on me. Please.” His hand hovered, then settled on your knee, warm and solid. “I can’t lose *you *too.”

You looked at him then, eyes glossy, mouth trembling like you might shatter. And maybe that was why you leaned forward. Or maybe it was why he did. It didn’t matter whose lips found whose—the point was that they met.

It wasn’t rough, not at first. Just desperate. A clutch of warmth in a world turned bitter cold. He kissed you the way Fred would have, or at least the way George thought Fred might. And when you didn’t pull away, when instead you melted into him, his arms came around you and held fast.

You whispered against his mouth, voice cracked: “This feels wrong.”

“I know,” he breathed, pressing his forehead to yours. “Feels bloody wrong. Feels like—like I’m stealing.”

You shook your head, fingers knotting in his shirt. “Fred wouldn’t… he wouldn’t want us like this.”

George’s laugh broke sharp and sad. “He wouldn’t want us miserable either, would he? He’d hex me senseless if he knew I let you cry alone.”

Silence, except for the sound of your breathing. And then, softly— “I can’t stop seeing him in you,” you whispered.

The words sliced him open, but he didn’t flinch. “Good,” George murmured, kissing the tear from your cheek. “Then maybe he’s here with us. Maybe that’s the only way we get through this.”

What followed blurred—your hands pulling him down, his mouth tracing the curve of your neck, both of you grasping for something more than grief. Sheets tangled, whispers muffled. He touched you like he’d never get the chance again, kissed you like it was the only way to keep breathing. And maybe you pretended. Maybe you imagined another name on his lips. George didn’t care.

Because for once—for one fragile night—the hollow inside him wasn’t quite so empty. When you finally stilled against his chest, his arm locked around you, George closed his eyes without seeing the rubble of the Great Hall for the first time in weeks.