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Darkness surrounds him. The little light he can see coming from cracks in the ceiling. Not like the miniscule light helps much.
The rushing of water. A dog barking. The greens of leaves rushing by as he flees.
Angry, shrill voices he can’t understand. Watching a street from a window.
It’s the same as it always is. Everything floating in and out of his vision faster then he can process it. He always tries to keep up and tries to understand what his soulmate is sending him but never seems able to. Or at least not completely.
George wakes up with a jolt.
Looking over his body, George already knows what he’s going to see. Looking out for the now familiar signs, he finds the buds quickly, the purples and whites covering his wrist almost like a cuff. Covering the back of his wrist and tapering off around the front. George knows what it looks like even if he doesn’t want to think about it as he glares at the offending flora.
Mum is already convinced he’s just being dramatic about them, but something about how often they have appeared is making him worried. It can’t be normal, right? His thirteenth birthday was less than a month ago, and he’s already seen buds and even fully grown flowers enough that most mornings he wakes up expecting them.
It would be one thing if they were always small, in areas that made sense. On elbows, knees, shins, maybe he wouldn't question it so much. Maybe they wouldn't make him feel like his chest is too tight. But they’re not. They’re always in odd, weird locations, in weird shapes that look far too intentional for George's comfort.
The first time the whole side of his face sprouted buds out of the blue only a week after his birthday, he ended up standing in the bathroom staring at them in the mirror for what felt like hours just trying to make sense of it. It wasn't like it was the first time he had thought it was odd. Something about that one specifically though just made him feel lost.
They don’t even go away on their own. Not for a while at least. Forcing him to either leave them on his skin for days or painstakingly pluck them away. So he knows his soulmate is either a Muggle-born or just not being healed. While he hopes it's the former or even that they're just a Muggle even if it's rare, something in the back of his mind says that's just not the case.
Fred didn't have to deal with this. He’s only sprouted buds and flowers one single time each so far. Once, flowers bloomed in a small line on the side of his finger and once a small circle of buds on his arm.
So maybe part of what bothers him so much is that Fred doesn't even understand it. He still gets excited when they grow, gets excited about the tangible proof that he has a soulmate at all, and George can’t blame him, not really. The first few times he had seen his, before he had begun to notice the weird patterns, he had felt the same after all.
Shaking himself out of his pity party, George finally pulls himself out of bed. Looking outside and finding that the sun was nowhere to be seen, he sighs. While it’s late, this might be a good time for him to try to talk to Percy. With the rest of the house likely still asleep, no one will interrupt them— even if he’ll likely be fussy and annoying about being woken up.
He had been putting off talking to him since he noticed how weird the flowers made him feel, but it seems he needs to at least try to. As much as he hates even the thought of it, he’s the most likely to understand, and George just needs someone else to understand.
Not to smile at him and tell him how it’s great that he’s already so protective like Mum does.
Not just say that it’s probably nothing to worry about like Dad.
Not to just look at him in confusion every time he just stares blankly at the flowers like Fred does.
Percy is probably as close as he’s going to get to that. Out of everyone in the family, he’s the only other one who sprouts as often as George does. He never looks upset about it, but to be fair, George never paid that much attention when they would grow, opting instead for mercilessly teasing Percy for his soulmate just being a clutz. Which, if this is how he’s always felt too, then George might have to actually apologise for once.
It doesn't take him long to walk across the hallway, but once he’s standing at Percy’s door, he isn't sure what he’s exactly going to say. He just hopes Percy’s in the mood to listen to him even at the late hour. He always used to be but with every year that goes by it feels like he always has less and less time to deal with Fred and him. Which he is not sad about, or at least that's what he tells himself.
After knocking on the door, George waits one moment then two then three before he loses patience and starts banging on the door incessantly. Then immediately remembering he needs Percy to want to listen and hopefully not be a fussy annoying prat and freezes his hand midair. Before he has a chance to run back to his room and pretend it wasn't him though, Percy opens the door almost hard enough to take it off its hinges and after looking at his face…
Yep he’s not happy.
“What is it? Do you know what time it is?”
“I don’t actually. I hadn't looked.” George says quickly as he pushes his way into Percy’s room.
Glaring at him, Percy continues curtly. “Four am. The sun’s not even up. Now, what do you want?”
George still isn't sure what to say. Opting to sit directly on Percy’s bed so he couldn't lie back down or kick him back out as easily. Staring intently at the buds still around his wrist, he tries to put his thoughts in order. After a few moments of silence, he does think of something to say at least. Which is good considering he wasn’t sure how much more Percy was going to tolerate.
“Do you think it’s bad that our soulmates get hurt so often?” When all he gets in response after a few seconds is Percy looking at him in confusion, George continues, “I just want your opinion on it.”
“Since when do you want my opinion on anything?” Percy asks, the annoyed look on his face finally vanishing, softening into one George knows by heart to be concern.
“You're the only one I thought might understand.”
Humming to himself, Percy finally moves away from his door and sits down on his bed next to George. “Well, what do you think?”
“I wanted to know what you thought.” George says back, confused at the direction this is going.
“I know, but I don't think I can answer that. Well, not for you at least. I can tell you that while it's probably not good for them, overall, getting hurt often overall is indeed a bad thing, of course. I never think much about it for mine. At the end of the day though that's not really why you’re asking. Right?”
“You really never think about it?” George asks sceptically.
“Not really, no. Occasionally I'll get a thought in my head that whoever my soulmate is must be extremely reckless or at times that they’ve done something particularly stupid, but that's about it in terms of my feelings on the matter.” Percy starts before staring at the cuff of flowers on George's wrist. After a few beats of silence, Percy sighs before continuing. “So? What about you then? Come on, you better not have woken me up just to decide not to talk. You obviously need to.”
“I think it is bad. Something about them makes me feel like I want to scream, Perce. I think about every injury for hours almost every time. About what could've happened. About what they’re doing to fix it because they don’t just heal quickly like yours do. They stay for days if I don’t pluck them.”
“Then it probably is a bad sign,” Percy says quietly.
“Wait really? You don’t think I'm just—” Being dramatic or overprotective is left unsaid.
“No, of course I don’t. You know your own feelings better than anyone else. If you feel distressed by them, then you likely have a reason to be. Even if you don’t know what that reason is just yet.”
“But mum said—”
“No offence to mother, but she and dad did find each other almost immediately. Within mere days of starting to sprout even. So they never had that period of time where all you have to go on is what the sprout gives you. Sometimes I wonder if they even know about it— considering how they never seem to say anything on the subject . You’ll learn more about it when you go back to Hogwarts, but the point is it’s not unusual to just know things about your soulmate. There's a lot of theories as to how it works and it doesn't work that way for everyone. For the people who do have a stronger connection though, they will realise that most, if not all, of what they've thought about them has been true.”
To just know things…
Nodding along to Percy’s explanation, George isn’t sure how he should feel. On one hand he’s just happy Percy’s taking his feelings seriously but on the other he kinda hoped he was being ridiculous after all. The idea that his fear about the flowers is really what’s happening scares him. Even more so since he knows there isn’t anything he can do about it.
Not yet at least. Not until he finds him.
The remaining weeks of summer break pass by him in a blur of seemingly constant flowers and prank planning. One small positive that came from all this though was talking Percy into helping him identify the flowers and learning that one of them— false indigo, were useful in a potion he and Fred were working on. The white ones, on the other hand, weren't useful for much that they were currently working on, sadly.
So, before he knows it, the whole family is rushing to catch the train back to Hogwarts and he’s never been more excited about it. If his recent dreams of a blurry Diagon Alley are anything to go on, he might just find his soulmate sooner than he thought.
After a few weeks of little to no flowers sprouting George feels elated, even if it’s making it harder to find them. He’s already tried nicking his skin in crowded places and keeping a watch for him but so far no luck. Only after the second time did he realise it wouldn't work anyway. It’s only when he suddenly does get new flowers and loses them just as quickly one day that he realises that now that he’s in a place where he’s actually being healed that it might be more difficult after all.
So his first school year continued like this. Flowers blooming and then falling almost as quickly. George not even getting a lead on who it could be. On one morning near the end of the year, it's even like he’s thrown back into the past summer, waking suddenly covered in fallen buds and flowers. Worried, George tries heading towards the infirmary. Before he even steps in though, Percy is at his side talking about Ron being hurt and he’s not ashamed to admit that all thoughts about his soulmate went flying out of his brain. While he does now have a list of potentials just based on who was in the infirmary he was more preoccupied with if Ron was ok to investigate any further.
Once back at the burrow for the summer, the sprouts go right back to being nearly constant and George hates it. He knows he can’t do anything about it right now but he’s tempted to just start stabbing everyone he comes into contact with when school starts back up, gently of course. He just knows that he has to do something about it.
So, to put it bluntly, he desperately needs a distraction. So when he and Fred overhear Ron talking about not being able to get into contact with his friend and Fred decides that taking Ron and going to pick the boy up themselves would be fun, George jumps at the opportunity.
Though it's only as he’s looking at Harry through the bars on his window and seeing with his own eyes the bruises that caused the buds he brushed away just that morning that it all clicks into place for him. That all the things he had chalked up to coincidence over the school year really were pointing him in the right direction even if he was too blind to see it. And man does he feel stupid for not figuring it out sooner.
One thing he knows though, is he can’t let him come back here.