Title: Beautiful Things Can Come from the Dark
Rating: FRT.
Warnings: Spoilers for DH.
Summary: He is a drowning man, she remembers, lost at sea; and all men lost at sea need something to anchor them to the shore.
Disclaimer: The names of all characters contained herein are the property of JK Rowling. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission.
Author's Notes: Came to me shortly before one o'clock in the morning. Therefore, if it's terrible, I apologize.

i.

It is a beautiful spring day and Hermione is sitting in her study at Hogwarts, grading essays for her Charms class. Some of them are rather dismal, but the larger portion, she's proud to say, are quite excellent. She's just starting on an essay titled, "Wingardium Leviosa: Is It All In the Wrist?" by a lovely Ravenclaw girl named Bryony when, most unceremoniously, George Weasley enters the room. He shuts the door behind him immediately, runs his hand through his hair, does everything but look at Hermione. She sets down her quill and pushes the papers aside (for now, she reminds herself.)

"George, are you quite all right?" she asks softly.

"Do you remember," he says quickly, "how in your third year you used a Time Turner to get to all your classes?"

She sighs. She should've known this would happen. It's only natural to want to turn back time—

"Yes, George, I remember."

"I was wondering, well, the thing is…I've been working up the nerve to ask you, Hermione, if you still have it."

He looks at her eagerly, desperately, and Hermione knows that this is the only thing he has left to grab onto. He is a drowning man, and this is his life preserver. She remembers telling Harry and Ron that after the adventure with Sirius (helping him to escape the Dementor's kiss) McGonnagal demanded the Time Turner back. She assumes that George has heard that same story. She stands up and moves out from behind her desk, wanting to go closer to George, to touch him somehow but not knowing if she should.

"You know I don't have it," she says gently.

He nods, and turns to leave. With his hand on the doorknob, George apologizes for showing up on such short notice and his voice breaks. Hermione's resolve breaks as well.

"George. Lock the door."

ii.

The Time Turner is looped around both their necks and Hermione holds their precious cargo in the palm of her hand. George stands close to her, his hand resting on her waist. She doesn't know why he has done that; even Harry didn't feel it necessary to touch her when they went cavorting through time in their third year. She feels nervous all of a sudden, butterflies in her stomach, and it has nothing to do with the fact that she worries they might change the past. But then Hermione remembers that is why they are going.

"George," she says softly. "You know you can't change what happened to Fred."

"Why not, then?" he asks. He doesn't mean for it to come out harsh, it just does, and he immediately regrets it.

"Because it's already happened," she replies.

He doesn't reply, and when she asks him when he'd like to go back, he says with no hesitation, "The Battle of Hogwarts."

Hermione turns the device and the world shudders, pauses and rewinds. George watches suns rise and set a thousand times over. He is relieved when the world finally slows down and it is night again, that fateful night. He barely notices Hermione lift the chain over his head and tuck the Time Turner inside her robes. She touches the back of his hand.

"Let's go," she says, gesturing towards the door.

iii.

It is tricky, finding their way through the halls of the school when Hogwarts is proving its coat of arms to be true. "Never tickle a sleeping dragon," it reads. And the dragon is waking up, George thinks, and it is angry. Oh, it rages. He is grateful when Hermione points out that McGonnagal has called the student body into the Great Hall; that doesn't solve the problem of the Order, though, which he finds a greater obstacle. He doesn't want to find himself on the wrong end of Tonks' wand.

By sheer happenstance (actually, running around a corner having thought that Filch spotted them) they found the Room of Requirement. It was a terribly scary moment, entering the Room when so many others were there. For a moment, Hermione is paralyzed with fear that either George or herself will be in the Room and they'll be taken down as imposters. Killed, even. That will be just bloody fantastic, she thinks. Luckily, fortunately, George of the past has gone ahead to his passageway and past-Hermione has gone off with Ron.

George ignores the people who exclaim over his appearance and shoves through the crowd, looking for his brother. He has waited two years, he thinks. He has hurt, and been broken near beyond repair; he has known desperation and longing that are enough to drive anyone else to insanity.

"Fred!"

His twin looks at him with confusion written all over his face, and George knows that he has never felt so relieved. There is still time.

iv.

"Weren't you supposed to go off to the passageway?" asks Fred curiously, the two of them huddled in a corner.

"Yeah. I did. I went," George says. "I'm there, right now. I…came back."

Fred rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, not understanding. "How can you be there, and here? You can't be two places at once, little brother."

"First of all," George replies somewhat crossly, "I'm only younger than you by three minutes. Second of all, I can be two places at once. I used a Time Turner. I had to come back, I had to tell you—"

He pauses, knowing that Hermione would not wish him to tell Fred that they will win the war, that he will die, that everything he thought was sure in this world was for naught. Speaking of Hermione, he thinks. He looks around the Room, but he doesn't see her; he is worried, thinking that perhaps someone who knows that she is elsewhere waylaid her. Problematic, seeing as she is his ticket out of the past.

"Tell me what?"

And though George has practiced this moment a thousand times, dreamed it, he cannot speak when Fred asks him why he has come from the future into his past. He just looks, and his stare is filled with such desperation and loss that Fred just knows. He knows.

"Well, shit."

v.

Hermione is at his side in a moment, whispering urgently, "George we have to go. We have to—Oh god, oh god, Harry's back, Ron and I are coming soon…" She doesn't notice Fred, or at least doesn't acknowledge him. When she finally turns and sees the identical figure, she gasps and tears spring to her eyes. Oh, it hurts, she thinks. Here, in the past, Fred is alive and somewhat well, and they (when did it become 'they' and not just George?) can save him.

"Oh, Fred!" she throws herself into his arms, and Fred looks over the wild mane of hair into George's eyes, and it is then that George knows that Hermione was right. He can't change this. It's already happened. It makes him bitter, and he wants to kill Rookwood (but Percy does, instead), and it hurts.

"I just need more time," George mumbles.

Now it is Fred who looks lost, who is hurting. He does not want to leave his brother behind to fend for himself, to start sentences waiting for him to finish them, only to get only silence in return. It's just not fair, he thinks.

Hermione peels out of Fred's embrace and pulls out the Time Turner. She fiddles with it for a moment, twisting it here and there. She looks to George. He doesn't want to leave, not just yet. These moments with Fred, right now, he doesn't want to let go because if he does, he'll just be back in a world where Fred is gone and he's alone, half of his former self. He is torn and he doesn't know how to fix himself, or if even he can be fixed.

"Fred. I, you know, I love you. I do. I wish I could change it but I don't think I can, oh Merlin this is terrible, I miss you so much, it's like being cut in two—" George is sobbing now, he can't catch his breath, and Fred's hand is suddenly on his shoulder pulling them together. The solid feel of his brother against him, warm and so very alive, makes George cry even harder.

"It's okay," soothes Fred. "I'll be waiting."

George gasps, and Hermione is tugging him away from Fred and George can't quite hate her for it. She shoves the Time Turner around his neck and spins it. He looks at Fred, his hand raised in a wave, hellogoodbye. And then George thinks, he knew. Fred knew he was going to die and he didn't do anything—But he doesn't blame him. He could never do that. The world shudders, pauses, and fast-forwards.

Hermione and George are back when they began, although not quite where.

vi.

His hand finds Hermione's of its own accord, but it feels so very comfortable and warm that George doesn't bother to retract it. They walk in silence through the halls of Hogwarts; back to her study, where he assumes that he will apologize for all that has happened and say goodbye. She will resume grading papers and life will go on as it has for the past few years. He finds himself not wanting to part from her; this experience, finding and then losing Fred all over again, has been something he shared with Hermione, and it is something that binds him to her.

They stand awkwardly in the middle of her study, each wondering what happens next. It is Hermione who speaks first.

"The dead need to be remembered, George, even if it rips at us."

It is simple enough, and something he should be willing to do, it's just that it hurts, and… "I'm not strong enough, Hermione."

Her hand comes to rest on his chest, above his heart. His hand covers hers, and their fingers entwine. He is a drowning man, she remembers, lost at sea; and all men lost at sea need something to anchor them to the shore.

"Then I'll be strong enough for us both," she says firmly, knowing that she can be, if George will let her.

vii.

George offers to sit with Hermione while she finishes grading her papers. Every so often he will stand, stretch, and look around the room at her belongings. He will peer at books, handle small inanimate objects, and smile at pictures. But then he sits again, and watches Hermione. She can feel his eyes on her, watching every scratch of her quill on the parchment, and she is surprised that she does not mind.

It is a companionable silence, unlike the strained ones before that she shared with Ron and Harry. She feels, although they do not speak often, that this is the best conversation she has ever had. Hermione thinks that she wouldn't mind more silences like this.

And she doesn't know it, but George is thinking the exact same thing.

viii.

It is in the fifth year of their marriage that George cries in front of their son for the first time.

Hermione is standing at the stove, wielding a spoon over a pan of scrambling eggs like it's a wand; their son, Fred, clings to her robe. He is telling his mother about a joke he heard Uncle Ron tell, repeating it in a way that only a child can, and George is reminded helplessly of his twin. He wants his brother back, he wants laughter and the other half and sorrow, shared tears and more pranks pulled together under the cover of night. He wants—

"Mum," whispers Fred. "Daddy's crying."

"That's because he has to eat my cooking on his birthday," Hermione says, turning to wink generously at George.

His son laughs gleefully, and Hermione scoops him up in her arms. In this moment, despite everything that has happened before, George cannot help but be happy.