Under the Stars

It was Christmas Eve, and more than a little cold outside. Most people were indoors with friends and family, although one person was sitting on a damp bench in the Cathedral close, wrapped up in a coat and scarf, staring at the Cathedral and the light streaming from its windows. It looked warm in there, but she preferred to sit out here, listening to the choir and organ from her own little world. She'd gone to Christmas services with her parents when she was a child. They never went to church at any other time of the year, but for her Christmas memories had always been bound up in services at their small parish church.

She'd lived in Winchester for three years now and had never actually been to a service in the Cathedral. She went into the Cathedral when there weren't services, and wandered about, reading the stone memorials to people long since dead. This fascination with memorials would have been morbid in an ordinary young woman, but Katie Bell had never been ordinary, and she wasn't about to start now.

At the tender age of eleven, she'd discovered that she wasn't quite who she thought she was: she was a witch, and magic was real. So she'd gone off to boarding school to learn how to be a witch, and she'd learnt to transform furniture into animals, and brew up a potion to cure a cold, and fly a broom. She'd been on her house Quidditch team for six years, finishing as Captain. On leaving school she'd been caught up in a war. She'd worked with Healers, dealing with people who'd been jinxed, hexed and tortured. She knew what it was to try frantically to save someone, only to fail, and watch them die. She'd been to funerals and memorial services, far too many services for far too many good people, some of whom had been killed before they'd had a chance to live.

She'd returned one evening to the flat she'd been sharing with two friends from Hogwarts to find one of them dead, the ominous Dark Mark hovering above their home, and she'd been the one to greet her other flatmate, and choke out the words, "They got Alicia," and realise what it meant to lose an old friend. Even now, unbidden, the image of Alicia's body would creep into her mind, until she had no choice but to sob into her pillow, remembering Alicia as she had been at school, wondering about the life her friend should have led, knowing that she, Katie, was probably the one the Death Eaters had been after that day. She tried not to think about Alicia, killed for no good reason, with no one she loved at her side, in pain and fear. But somehow it seemed wrong, sometimes, to live when Alicia was dead.

Katie Bell was not an ordinary young woman.

Following the war, following the defeat of Voldemort, she'd taken a position at St Mungo's and had earned the lime green robes of a fully qualified Healer. She loved her work. She knew part of what she was trying to do was make up for Alicia's death - to give others the life Alicia had lost. It didn't work, not in that sense, but it was the only thing that made life fulfilling.

She was twenty-five now. Twenty-five, and single, because love was the other thing she'd lost.

There'd been boyfriends over the years. Hell, she'd dated the famous Harry Potter! True, that had been for a mad, heady three months following Voldemort's downfall, when they'd both been searching for something to replace what they'd lost during the war. They'd broken up amicably; she harboured no romantic feelings for him and never really had done. He was married now. She'd sent a congratulatory card on the wedding. Best wishes for a happy, peaceful future - you both deserve it. Love, Katie. His wife, Ginny, was, well, she was a Weasley.

There'd been another couple of guys since Harry - Roger Davies, whom she'd known at Hogwarts; and a guy from work named Luke - but it hadn't worked out with either of them. She hadn't loved either of them and that was her problem, perhaps - the fact that, despite it all, she still believed in love.

She was still in love with her boyfriend from Hogwarts.

She and George Weasley had promised to love each other forever - but then life got in the way. The war got in the way. George was a year older than her; they'd written letters, her seventh year at school, but it had never quite been the same. Sometime during the war, when they needed each other the most, they'd drifted apart. She'd been scared to touch him, at Alicia's funeral. She wanted him to hold her like he'd done at school and he wanted to sob into his shoulder while he rocked her and rubbed her back, but she was scared. Scared of losing someone else she loved. Somehow, she'd decided that it would be better just to let things slide, rather than love him and then have him die.

Something had gone wrong with that plan - neither of them had died, and she still loved him.

Lost in her thoughts, Katie barely noticed the couple strolling towards her out the dusk. They wouldn't have mattered to her if she had noticed them; she hardly knew anyone in Winchester. So it was that when one of them, tentatively, called her name in a voice from the past that she literally jumped and stared up at the couple in front of her with unseeing eyes for the first few seconds.

Fred and Angelina. George's identical twin brother and the third flatmate from the days during the war.

Perhaps it was because it was Christmas. Perhaps it was because she'd been making herself rather miserable, mulling over everything she'd lost, but Katie was suddenly very glad to see them.

***

After a few minutes of hugging, laughing, crying and confused talking, Katie found herself leading her two old friends through the narrow, twisting side streets to her small flat. She still couldn't quite believe it - Fred and Angelina had been to see Angelina's parents, and were having a look at the town before Apparating home. It was as if they'd just appeared from nowhere - she hadn't seen either for years, except for the odd Christmas/birthday card. Hadn't seen them since their wedding, in fact, and now Angelina's stomach was round and pressing against the front of her coat.

Katie made tea, and brought out a packet of biscuits, and they sat in the living room and tried to think of what to say to each other. Katie was trying desperately not to look at Fred, who was, after all, a carbon copy of the only man she'd ever loved. Angelina seemed to pick up on this, because she drew Katie's attention to her stomach, and Katie, relieved, seized on the topic of the baby her friends were having.

Sooner or later, as was to be expected, the conversation came round to Christmas. On hearing that Katie's Christmas plans involved listening to the WWN with only her cat for company, Fred promptly invited her to the Burrow for the day.

Katie stared at him, blankly. Weasley Christmases were legendary. Molly and Arthur Weasley tended to grab anyone they could and have them round for Christmas.

"Oh, come, please," said Angelina. "We've only just found you again! The more the merrier, Molly always says. Half the wizarding world's coming so one more won't make any difference."

"Okay," said Katie, trying not to think too much about the fact that George would be there. "I'll come."

***

At the Burrow, George Weasley was, rather unhappily, contemplating a Christmas as the only single adult male in the house. The Burrow was packed - Bill was there, with his wife Claire; Charlie and his wife Anna; Fred and Angelina were staying; Ron and Hermione; Harry and Ginny; Neville Longbottom was bringing his wife, Susan; Remus Lupin was coming with his partner, Fran; and then there'd be the children, and Luna Lovegood. George suspected his mother thought he and Luna should get married, probably because they were the only singles in the Weasley circle. The fact that Luna would drive him round the bend didn't seem important.

Staring out at the stars, George sighed, and thought of the beautiful girl he'd never stopped loving, and wondered where Katie was now.