Left Behind (A Fred & George fanfic)

18. The One That's Worth It All

 It took me some time, but here's the next chapter! 

This is dedicated to Dalrian, since he always reads whatever nonsense I write and since he introduced me to the song that's attached to this chapter. Why I chose this song? Well, I love it in general, and I think no one should ever feel left alone or left out. There's always someone who's willing to listen to your problems. 

Have fun reading! Please tell me what you think! 

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It's hard to concentrate and focus when two people are talking – no, yelling – to you at the same time, and it gets even more difficult when one of those two people has no idea the other person exists. Ugh, George managed to confuse himself merely by thinking about the absurdness of the situation.

Fred had basically been telling George what to do from the moment Angelina walked in on them. 'Mental support', his brother called it. However, George rather referred to it as 'annoying background noise'. He knew that Fred was just trying to help him, but Fred, too, hadn't made up his mind yet on what to do, so his advise varied from “Maybe telling her you have a fever and therefore suffer from hallucinations will make her leave...” to the more serious “Just tell her about everything already, she's suspecting things anyway.”.

In the end Fred kept more to the latter and began a monologue on why it was better for Angelina to know the entire story – and that was when George had screwed up and had practically made his decision without even realizing it.

“Shut up!” George yelled.

Angelina looked at him, shocked. “What did you just say to me?”

Fred threw his hands up in the air and then sat down on the floor, looking slightly amused. “Well, this is not exactly the way I imagined it would happen...”

George firstly tried to talk himself out of it, which was impossible, of course. He knew very well that if Angelina put her mind to something, it was going to happen one way or another anyway. He didn't want to lose Fred, he obviously didn't. But he didn't want to lose Angelina either. Angelina was the one who had stayed with him through everything, the only one who had managed to make him feel alive again after he had lost his brother. He couldn't be dishonest with her, she didn't deserve that. He had known that for a long time already, he just didn't want to realise that that meant sharing his precious secret with her.

He shivered, why did the room seem so cold all of a sudden?

“We've got something to admit.” he sighed. He then turned around and pointed his wand at the fireplace. A fire started immediately, giving the room a shallow glow.

He threw a glance at Fred, who was now – finally – quiet. Fred just shrugged as if to say 'it's all up to you now, mate!' and George sighed again before he faced Angelina. She still wore that shocked expression, George hated it. He hated himself for making her go through all of this.

“Just... Don't panic when I tell you the entire story, okay?” he muttered. He had never felt this insecure and shy in his life. Keeping secrets from people was something he had done for years, regularly, even before 1998, but this was different. This wasn't 'just a secret'.

“'Don't panic'?” Fred interrupted almost immediately. “Are you kidding me? Have you seen her face? She looks like she just saw a ghost or something!”

He fell silent for a second and then shook his head a few times quickly.

“And I didn't even mean that ironically.”