Love is the Child of an Endless War

"Yes, yes! My troll has bludgeoned your troll to death, and eaten all of the villagers! I win!" Jasper hurled his game controller onto the rug, jumping up to do a victory jig.

"How many hours did you spend playing this game with your aunt Ginny the other night?" George inquired dryly, glumly viewing the video game screen spectacle of Jasper's troll stomping his bloody, dead troll into the computer graphic mud. "I thought she was furious with you, and instead she's taught you to trounce me at Troll Invasion: Stomp Through the Muck."

"George!" Penny spoke sharply sticking her head around the corner into the recreation room. "I don't think that's an appropriate game just before bedtime. Do you? Jasper will have nightmares."

"I'm going to have nightmares," George grumbled. "My troll is in pieces, his troll rules the world."

"Turn off the game, Jasper," Penny ordered. "It's time you were in bed."

"Mummy, it's only nine thirty!" Jasper protested. "I never go to bed before eleven at school."

"Is that right?" she queried severely, giving George a meaningful raised eyebrow. "Well, I think that's a big part of your problem. You need to spend more time sleeping and less time plotting mischief. You might then find yourself being better behaved. I believe I'll write a letter to that effect and owl it to your head of house."

"Hurry up and get ready for bed, Jasper," George advised in a whisper. "Before she gets out the quill."

"You said you would read to me tonight," Jasper reminded him.

"I will, I will," George agreed making scooting motions with his hands, "but for the love of Rowena Ravenclaw's chastity belt, don't get your mother riled up. Go pick out a book in the library and be quick about it."

Jasper loved the library best of all the rooms in his house. Penny was an avid reader, so George had re-done the room with her especially in mind. Deep shelves covered every wall from floor to oak paneled ceiling. The wooden floor echoed the sound of a browser's footsteps. One enormous unadorned window framed the neighbors pasture land and the woods just beyond it. The chairs were all overstuffed, with great fluffy pillows. But the books alone made it Jasper's ideal.

Every Christmas and birthday new volumes stocked the shelves because Penny and Jasper preferred books to any other gift. George had rarely read for pleasure before becoming intimate with intellectual Penny and her bookworm offspring. He'd learned through forced march hours of reading aloud to Phil and Jasper to enjoy it in self-defense. Jasper had read every book on the shelves, most of them twice, many he already knew by heart. He didn't need George to read them to him, but George did deadly accurate impersonations of every character he knew and the ones he didn't know he created on the spot. It was a brilliant bit of showmanship, and always entertaining.

Jasper had already read his mother's medical texts, George's tax accounting tomes and books of magic tricks, every historical dissertation scroll his Grandfather Clearwater ever had published, his Gran Weasley's memoirs and tips on mothering, plus endless stacks of Muggle comic book super hero adventures. Uncle George's personal row, way, way, at the top was off limits. Jasper sneaked a peek once and was a little horrified by the moving pictures.

His favorite shelf, by far, was the one that housed his father's collection. Percy had liked storybooks, adventure tales, murder mysteries, romantic conquests and fantasies galore. Jasper vaguely remembered sitting on his lap, being read to by the hour. Most of his memories of Percy were foggy. Solid recollections but misted with time. He remembered being hoisted on his father's high shoulders. Threading his tiny fingers through fire red hair, thinking that he was so high up he could see forever. He recalled a soothing deep voice that could sear like the crack of a whiplash when it was angry. Generally, Jasper remembered his father being industrious, always in motion, but acutely attentive just the same. And he remembered this book that he'd written in.

Pausing hesitantly for a moment in front of his favorite shelf, he picked up the slender volume, held it for a minute and his hand trembled just a little. He'd read the whole thing, cover to cover, a few years back. Understanding the words perfectly, but not comprehending the meaning of them at all. It was a book of love poetry, penned by a Muggle author that had lived centuries ago. He'd liked rhyming in his work, and thought a lot about sex. It had been a gift to Penny, and on the flyleaf Percy had written:

With this knotted golden cord I twine

My lover's heart and soul to mine,

Swearing an oath to the Goddess above

That I will worship her body with love

Eternally yours, Percy

Jasper squatted on his haunches, staring at the words. He'd memorized them long ago, but they enthralled him. He used to think they were a love spell. Love spells were illegal even now that the old Ministry of Magic had been completely overthrown and reinstated with a new government that focused first on freedom, second on peace and far less on controlling the private lives of its citizens. Love spells were extremely dangerous though, they had always been illegal, probably always would be.

He'd opened the book one lazy afternoon, and finished reading it fast. Penny came in to see what he was studying and he'd showed her the book because he was curious about the love spell. She'd gone very pale, and sat down on a chair to take the book into her hands. Jasper remembered her lips moving rapidly, but silently, it seemed as though she couldn't get out what it was she wanted to say. Then she'd handed the book back to him, and quickly excused herself from the room. Confused, Jasper followed her, but the house elf stopped him to say that Penny wasn't feeling well and had gone upstairs to have a lie down. Jasper was convinced she'd been cursed.

He'd accosted George the minute he walked through the door, rambling wildly about the evil hexed poetry that had somehow found its way into their cozy home and made his mother ill. George was concerned, "What do you mean she's ill? What did it do to her?"

Jasper, trying to explain the reaction she'd had to his showing her the book, was interrupted by Aloysius, the house elf, who said, "She is simply ill with grief, Master George." The house elf's opinion confused Jasper all the more and a panicked ringing in his ears joined up with his wildly pounding heart. Grief was a terrifying word. It made his mother cry. Cry all of the time. It made her so ill that she didn't eat, or sleep, or talk. Grief had made her try to hurt herself.

George dismissed the house elf for the day, mumbling something deprecatingly rude under his breath as the wrinkly, gray skinned, little creature shuffled out the front door. He sat Jasper down at the kitchen table and made macaroni and cheese for dinner. Strange, how some days every little detail of life could be recalled with such precision. Phil, who was only four at the time, had shoved macaroni up her nose. George couldn't get it out using magic and carried her into the loo kicking and screaming. Jasper wasn't sure what happened in there, but George had the time of it getting that macaroni back out. Jasper couldn't swallow a thing without feeling as though it would choke him, so he just waited. George returned with a squirming, wailing Phil under his arm to discover Jasper visibly shaking from head to toe.

Forgetting about Phil, who was remarkably resilient, George had turned his attentions to Jasper. "Show me the book," he said. So Jasper led him into the library proffering the offending literature betwixt forefinger and thumb as though it were a venomous viper responsible for attacking his mother with feelings now that should have long been petrified in the past. With a heavy sigh George sank back into a cushy chair and the book seemed to open of its own volition to the flyleaf page. Jasper recoiled, but George held out his hand and pulled Jasper onto his lap to assure him, "This book is not cursed. Mummy will be fine. She's probably a little bit sad right now, but that's all right, I'll go up to talk to her. She won't be----she won't take ill the way she was before. I promise."

"Why is she sad?" Jasper demanded to know. "If that book makes her sad let's throw it away."

"This will be your book someday, Jasper." George had informed him and he was a little bit alarmed at the notion that such a powerful cursed object would be in his possession one day. George continued, "But I won't let you throw it away. I think you'll understand this book better when you're a little older. Yes, I know you've already read it," he said before Jasper could interrupt him, "but being able to read something and understanding it isn't always the same thing. No matter how intelligent you are you're still too young to understand this. So, I'm putting it back on the shelf for now. If you have questions come talk to me about it, rather than to Mummy, all right?"

"All right," today's Jasper thought clenching the book tightly. Uncle George had been correct, he did understand it better now that he was older, and now he had questions.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"I put myself to bed every single night at Hogwarts, Mummy," Jasper said, protesting his mother's attentions too loudly a short while later.

"I know you do, darling." Penny threw George an irritated glance that clearly conveyed her message. It was a cold world that allowed an eleven-year-old boy to put himself to bed every night at the outrageous late hour of eleven o'clock, when any idiot could tell he was better for having his parents tuck him in to it at a quarter after ten. "That's why I have to do an especially good job of tucking you in on the nights you are home." She pulled the blankets up under his arms, and tucked them tightly around his skinny frame, before sitting on the bed beside him.

George, avoiding exposing his amused expression to either one of them, wandered over to stare out of Jasper's bedroom window. Penny was in transports having her baby back at home for a few days, and Jasper was wrestling with his competing desires to be both grown-up and comfortably nurtured by his loving mother at the same time. George recalled fending off his own mother at the same age, but then with seven children in his family none of them had ever grown comfortable with being the center of maternal attention.

Penny was an instinctive nurturer, an earth goddess to her core. She fussed over George in much the same manner as she fussed over Jasper and Phil, especially if he was ill or upset. He never complained to her about it; what man in his right mind would? George loved his mother, but truth be told, at age thirty-three Molly Weasley had been a harassed, harried, grimly exhausted, single caretaker of four children under the age of five, and mother to three more besides. She had never once come to tuck George into bed while wearing Chinese red silk pajamas. With her hair twisted up in a fluffy knot of cascading, shiny dark curls, and all the time in the world with which to spoil and pet him.

George acknowledged that his children were spoiled willingly, happily even. Not only did they have enough money to provide them with every luxury known to wizard and Muggle kind, he and Penny had always made their upbringing a singular priority. Jasper and Phil were given loads of individual attention, which was something that had been missing from both Penny's and George's childhoods, even though she was an only child and he one of seven. He thought that Jasper was missing their undivided attention while he was away at school. It showed on his face, and in his attitude, although he probably didn't realize it and wouldn't admit to it if he had.

"Will you want to come with me on my honeymoon so you can tuck me in on my wedding night, too?" Jasper inquired of her cheekily, not fully appreciating how lucky he really was.

"I don't see why we shouldn't go with you," George said wryly, not turning away from the window. "You came with us on ours, and I spent most of it reading "Tales of the Mystifying Magnanimous Manti Core" to you in our cabin because you were sea sick."

Penny flashed a smile at George, who had indeed done that very thing for Jasper and never uttered a single word of complaint about it. Putting her hand over her red silk clad heart in feigned seriousness she said, "Don't even jest with me that way, Jasper. You mustn't ever fall in love, get married, and leave me. It would break your poor mother's heart."

"You've been married twice to a Weasley and Gran Weasley seems to be all right with it," Jasper scoffed at her.

"That isn't true. I've stolen two of her sons away and your Gran Weasley has never forgiven me," Penny told him with a twinkle in her eye, thinking about some of the struggles she'd come up against in dealing with her formidable mother-in-law twice over.

"She's much nicer to you now that she's got Lupin," Jasper observed quite accurately.

George's wheezing mirth transformed itself into a sharp cough. Penny played along. "Ahh, yes, that's true, but you see Remus Lupin's mother is dead. Your grandmother doesn't have to worry about breaking his mother's heart. That knowledge has made her more generous in her advancing years."

"Possibly Lupin's mum is rolling over in her grave even as we speak," George couldn't help but interject with a wink at Jasper, "but she's undoubtedly dead all the same. Now, if you two are done having a go at my mum, I'll just get on with reading Jasper his story."

"Very well, I can tell when I'm no longer wanted." Penny gave in with good grace, placing a kiss on Jasper's forehead. "Goodnight, Jasper, I'm so glad to have you home." She left to check on Phil who had been put to bed an hour ago despite rampant screeching protests that it was unfair, and that George and Penny were clearly partial to Jasper because he didn't have to go to bed at the same time as she did.

George, dropping into the chair next to Jasper's bed in the wake of Penny's departure, propped his loafer clad feet on the spotless duvet, and cracked the book. "Great pick, Jasper. Love this story." And he began to read. Jasper laughed until his sides ached, "Oh, wait! Wait! All right! Do that one again, yes, that one! Brilliant!" He held his ribs close, wiping tears from his eyes, and then pleaded for mercy, "Uncle George, would stop reading for a minute? I have to ask you a question."

"But Jasper," George protested, "we're just getting to the best part. Fred and I are about to make our triumphant exit out of Hogwarts right beneath Professor Umbridge's nose. Everybody loves this scene."

Jasper looked askance. "No offense Uncle George, but I think that scene is overdone. It's not that realistic."

"You wound me," George responded, closing the book and tossing it over his shoulder. "So, what's on your mind?"

"I want to know something about love," Jasper said, propping himself onto his elbows.

Wonderful, the diabolical genius had the soul of a romantic. Well, it wasn't as though George hadn't prepared himself for this day. "Are we speaking hypothetically here?" George inquired hopefully.

"Not exactly."

"Are you in love?" George had learned never to underestimate Jasper; it was always smart to take his questions seriously.

"There is this girl," Jasper confided thoughtfully, and perhaps a tad bit shyly. "She's a fifth year student."

"An older woman?" George interrupted.

"It's worked out all right for you," Jasper retorted.

"So it has," George agreed. "Okay, she's an older woman. What else?"

"She feels very nice." Jasper announced dreamily.

"You've felt her?" George leaned in closer. This could be serious.

"Yes, she feels soft like Mummy, not all poky, and sharp, like Aunt Fleur. You remember Aunt Fleur?"

"All too well," George replied with a grimace, recalling his oldest brother's annoying first wife. He was surprised that Jasper remembered her. She'd been long gone before Percy died. "How did you get around to discovering that this girl is soft?"

"She kissed me," Jasper responded as though it were obvious.

"She kissed you?" George queried, trying not to show his smile.

Apparently feeling that his manhood had been assailed Jasper sat up straight and announced pompously, "I may not have red hair, but I am a Weasley."

"Yes, you are," George conceded. "All right, she kissed you. What then?"

"I kissed her back, of course," Jasper answered sounding annoyed. Really now, he knew George understood the basics. He'd walked in on him and Mummy kissing in the kitchen, tripped over them kissing on the recreation room floor. Plus, he knew they did it because he'd been roundly scolded for rushing into their bedroom without knocking first. Although he hadn't thought that scolding was fair. Would any reasonable person knock on their parent's door before seeking sanctuary? Knowing, just knowing, that a legion of zombies was pursuing him down the corridor? Not very damned likely.

"Of course you did. Okay, let's have a recap. There's this girl, you like her, you've already kissed her, she feels nice, and now you want to know...what?"

"How do you know when you're in love? I mean, if it's really real love?" Jasper inquired unaffectedly.

"Does this divine creature have a name?" George asked giving himself time to figure out just what it was Jasper needed to know. Thinking of a way to answer his question without overwhelming him with information he wasn't ready to handle. This parenting gig was tough. He understood better how his parents managed seven children. They never talked about anything important because there wasn't any time.

"Millicent. Millicent McGonagall."

George's eyebrows shot up, "Any relation to Minerva?"

"Possibly," Jasper responded, beginning to be irritated. "I don't know, third cousin twice removed or something, why? Is that really relevant?"

George leered at him with an evil grin, "Possibly it is relevant, so don't be cheeky. What if your Transfiguration teacher catches you snogging with her distant relation? She might turn you into a horned toad."

"If I get the chance, I'll risk it," Jasper assured him, still waiting for a reasonable answer to his serious question, something he'd been promised he'd always get.

George leaned back in his seat, considering Jasper carefully, finally he said, "I'll let you in on a little secret, Jasper. Love is a verb."

Jasper rolled this over in his mind for a moment, "Well, actually, Uncle George, the primary definition of love is..."

"Get out of the dictionary and come back to me," George ordered him. "I'm speaking to you about love in the metaphor now. Do you know what that means?"

"I'm a genius," came the only response required.

"Right, as if I'd ever be allowed to forget it. Don't be too smart. You asked a question and I think I have your answer. Love isn't something that just stands around waiting to be felt, love is something you can make. You can create it with your words and your actions. That's why it never runs out."

"It's a renewable resource," Jasper commented thoughtfully.

"Exactly," George agreed. "For example, after you kissed Millicent, did you like her more than before you kissed, or less?"

"Rather more I should think," Jasper said with scant consideration.

"There you are then, you see how doing something nice for someone creates better feelings."

"Will I like Millicent even more if I kiss her again?" Jasper pondered the limitless possibility.

"Possibly," George acknowledged, wanting to be honest without openly encouraging more kissing of much older women. "Maybe not. But if you and Millicent go your separate ways the next girl you kiss will still benefit from the feelings you had for Millicent. Does that make sense to you?"

"Yes, it kind of does make sense," Jasper said, the wheels in his brain squeaking almost audibly. "Is that why people use "making love" as a euphemism for doing it?"

"It isn't a euphemism, it's an irrefutable result of the act when it's done with kindness and affection," George corrected him. "That's why you shouldn't have sex unless you are prepared to love. And don't forget, Jasper, loving someone is a big responsibility. So, have I answered your question?"

"I think so."

"Good, can I go back to reading the best scene ever written about me now?"

"Uncle George, that scene doesn't even come close to being the best scene ever written about you," Jasper refuted with a grin.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"I think my heart is broken," Penny confessed dolefully when George told her about Millicent as they lay in bed together later that night. "What does that loose-lipped trollop think she's about kissing my baby? First there are prefects that can be bought out and now this. I hate Hogwarts. I don't want my son going to school there."

George patted her shoulder soothingly. "I was only twelve when I kissed my first girl at Hogwarts," he admitted by way of consoling her.

"Were you really? I'd always thought of you as being something of a late bloomer." Penny pondered mildly distracted from her heartbreak. "Whom did you kiss?"

"What do you mean by 'a late bloomer'?" George demanded. "Are you comparing me to a flowering tuber?"

"Something like that," Penny readily agreed, teasing him. Patting his thigh affectionately she added, "I'm just thinking about how shy you were with me at first. You acted like you were afraid to kiss me."

"Penny, I was terrified of kissing you," George assured her. "Whenever I came anywhere near you with a lewd thought on my mind I kept expecting Percy to walk in and beat the living hell out of me. Not a rational fear I know, but a very real one."

Penny laughed, "I don't think that's so very irrational under the circumstances. You still haven't told me whom you kissed."

"Angelina."

"George!" Penny rebuked him feigning shock. "Angelina was Fred's girl!"

"Not then she wasn't," George defended himself. "Besides I liked Angelina first. Fred, Lee, and I were in the Common Room late one night during exams. We were pretending to study, but really we were getting tanked up on way too much butter beer. It was Fred's idea. He suggested we get the girls involved in a game of "Spin the Potions Vial". Well, you know Katie Bell was always up for some fun, it didn't take long to talk Angelina into playing, too."

"I'm surprised Percy didn't put a stop to that," Penny said folding her arms and eyeing him disapprovingly. Now that her son was attending Hogwarts, a late night game of "Spin the Potions Vial" didn't sound quite as frivolous and harmless as it used to.

Feeling wicked, George bedeviled her, "If I'm not much mistaken, love, Percy was out of the tower at the time. I'm fairly certain he was canoodling with some girl that he liked someplace private."

"No!" Penny exclaimed under pretense of astonishment.

"Yes," George said pushing her back on the pillows, and leaning over her with a censorious scowl.

"Well, what happened with Angelina anyway? How did she come to be Fred's girl if you liked her?" Penny queried by way of distracting him while holding him off with two firm palms placed against his chest.

"I found somebody I liked even better," George informed her suggestively.

"Who was she?" Penny interrogated utterly clueless.

"Whom do you think?" He replied widening his eyes obviously.

"Not me?" Shaking her head. "Seriously, now, George, are you telling me you fancied me when you were twelve? That's a bit unbelievable. I didn't even know you then."

"You just ignored me then," he disagreed. "You were too smitten with the pin-head to notice my infatuation."

"I barely even knew Percy then," Penny argued. "We only dated once or twice that whole year."

"Yes, and do you remember that day outside Greenhouse number 5, when you were making plans to go into Hogsmeade with him and that avalanche of snow fell onto your head?"

"That was you?" Stunned by his impertinent revelation. "You caused that? Shame on you, George! Percy had to take me up to the infirmary! An icicle hit my forehead and left a bump on it the size of a Snitch! No wonder he was always so irritated with you!"

George had the grace to look somewhat abashed. "I meant for it to fall on Percy's head," he admitted apologetically, "and if it makes you feel any better he kicked my hind end from one end of Gryffindor Tower to the other over that incident."

"How did he know that it was you who did it, and not Fred?" Penny wondered.

"He always did know somehow," George replied having long since given the mysteries of Percy back over to the universe that had claimed him. "But if there was any time he was ever unsure about which one of us was guilty he was only too happy to beat the hell out of both of us."

"It's too bad about Fred and Angelina breaking it off," was Penny's transitory thought, "I thought she was good for him."

George shrugged, "Maybe they'll get back together. If he'd ever get off of his assistant he might make the effort to look her up again."

Penny sighed, her distraction at an end. George had begun rubbing her shoulders, which felt perfectly lovely, but it wasn't much solace when her baby was falling in love with another woman.

"I think I understand now why your mother hates me," she said with sudden shared feeling.

"My mother does not hate you," George objected pausing in his massage to look at her curiously. "Why do you say that she hates you? You've given her two perfectly wonderful grandchildren, and made two of her sons happy. What more could she ask for?"

"You don't understand, George," Penny responded despondently. "Women can't bear to see their children grow up, it's excruciating."

"I think you need another baby," George said insinuating himself closer to her.

"It will only grow up and leave me too."

"I won't ever leave you, Penny," George promised, sensing she wasn't in the mood for an attempt at creation. "What's the matter with you, tonight? I thought having Jasper at home would make you happy."

"It does," she sniffed tearfully.

"Yes, I see that it does. You're so happy you're about to burst into tears and spill your euphoria all over my shoulder. Is that right?"

"Sarcasm doesn't become you," Penny retorted.

"No, sarcasm was Percy's forte," George willingly agreed.

"I'm just in a funk, I suppose," Penny grumbled, scrubbing at her eyes. "I miss Jasper dreadfully when he's at school, but then he's home and I see he's gotten so big. He's really not my baby anymore, so I miss him still."

"I think you need to have another baby," George repeated.

"Well, that might be a lot easier to do if my damned periods didn't keep coming like clockwork every month!" Penny snapped at him irritably and then burst into tears.

"Oh," said George, with sudden comprehension, putting his arms around her. "So, that's what's wrong."