A Bit Unhealthy

She makes him feel sorry for Fred, and he's not sure, at the time or later, whether he wants to thank her or curse her for that. He does neither.

Two months later Ron's working the register at the shop when Angelina walks in, looking rather grim.

Of all the stupid things George has done in his life, sleeping with Angelina Johnson definitely rates as the very stupidest. And yet somehow they are slowly working past it.

And then with a rush of blood and disorienting suddenness, it's over. He's looking at Angelina's face and almost misses the baby as he makes his entrance into the world.

She's not sure of much, these days. Other than the fact that it's a relief when somebody else tells her what to do, as she's made an absolute mess of everything she's tried to do for herself in the last year or so.

How do you walk back into the life of your child after trying to abandon him? How do you walk back into the life of one of your closest friends after hurting him, badly, far too many times?

Then George looks up and they share a smile and it's good to see them both so much freer of all the negative stuff they were pressed down with before. And for one brief, insane moment, Ron wonders, would they really be so wrong together?

And he realizes that Fred may not have given him any answers out at the cold gravesite, but he should've known Fred wouldn't speak through hard ground and stone. Fred isn't there; he's here, within their family and inside George's heart, and maybe that has to be enough.

"Although he did get to literally die laughing, surrounded by people who loved him, fighting to make a better world, and I know he would've thought it the perfect way to go except for the indignity of being done in by masonry."