Forget Me Not || George Weasley

Chapter 52

{{I didn't edit—so forgive any odd errors! Enjoy.}}

Olive's body hurt.

Not her head. It had been better, a dull sort of throb like a deep bruise that was beginning to heal. Her body hurt, ached. Her soul splintered with something heavier than pain.

Guilt.

It was guilt. Eating away at her like a corrosive potion. It had been there since her appointment at St. Mungos, because when she was asked what she remembered, if she remembered a single thing about the night her memory had been damaged...she lied. Through her clenched teeth and a wobbling smile. She'd lied. The one night she was supposed to forget, the night she had begged and screamed to have disappear from her mind, was beginning to clear like fog in the morning sun.

George is quiet as they walk down Diagon Alley. He'd been quiet since St. Mungos too. At first she was scared that he was upset, that he was beginning to realize what a liar she was. But he's gentle when he grabs her hand, soft spoken when he murmurs that he'll get the door despite the take-away bags in his other arm. And Olive wants to help, wants to apologize profusely for being so blue today. She wants to beg for forgiveness in anticipation of finally telling the truth. Instead she offers up another strained smile.

George doesn't buy it. She can tell. He surprises her though. He has yet to ask any sort of invasive question beyond what she was in the mood to eat. And when she'd sheepishly admitted she'd been craving the pizza from the place they'd gone on their first date, he had only smiled and nodded.

Now, he guides her through the darkness of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. His hand stays on her back, like he knows that she's exhausted. She must look it. She hated healer appointments. She hated it all, and pretending like everything is fine feels like she's trying to swim with cobblestones attached to her ankles.

George swings open the door to his flat, murmuring something she can't quite hear as he scoots by her to walk to the kitchen. Olive moves to help, but ends up lingering in the doorway.

She looks around the flat, coming to a uncertain sort of realization.

Something is different.

Her brow furrows, fingers pressing against her mouth as she pieces together George Weasley's flat. It was difficult, feeling like there was something off when she wasn't certain she could even remember what it looked like the last time she was here. Like playing a game of I-spy.

From what she could recall, nothing was truly out of place. The same neatly stacked books on a shelf, the same knickknacks positioned just the way they always were. She knew he liked things a certain way, because if she thumbed a chess piece just slightly off it's respective square, George would put it back when he thought she wasn't looking. She could remember that, where his decor was meant to go, what pictures hung where. She could even remember that the gramophone they hadn't worked up to listening to together was still sat statuesque in the corner. The same. It was the same.

But different. Something was different.

Her eyes slide from the kitchen, across the walls, sweeping over the rug. It hits her right in the chest, knocking the air from her lungs. It's obvious now.

The sofa.

Olive blinks, and then she blinks again. There, sitting like it had been there forever, was a brand new sofa.

A green sofa.

Olive hurries over, reaching out and touching the moss colored fabric. Its dark, earthy, and the feeling so soft against her fingers that she wants to melt into the cushions. Green. George, the very person that couldn't look at the green painted door across from his bedroom, the person that had avoided her eyes, the one that seemed to sneer at the beauty of all of the green that surrounded the Burrow. That George, her George, had gone and purchased a green couch.