George & Annie: an Unofficial Biography

Chapter 53: Tantrum

2011

Age 33

George arrived home from work that evening to a silent house. He stepped out of the fireplace to see Merrie and Joey were sitting at the dining table, quietly doing their homework, rather than running up to him for hugs. They looked up briefly and said, "Hello, Daddy," in solemn unison; not their usual effusive greeting. Winky was uncharacteristically working alone in the kitchen, presumably preparing dinner. Something was very wrong.

"Where's Janie?" he asked, although he was pretty sure he knew the answer already.

"Upstairs in our room," answered Merrie, keeping her eyes on the table in front of her. Her lips pursed, as if she was angry with her sister. Perhaps they had had a fight, thought George. That in itself would not be out of the ordinary, considering Janie's penchant for pissing people off with her sarcastic comments or pathological uncooperative streak. The fact that either girl was still pouting about it was unusual, though.

"Where's your mother?" he asked.

Merrie bit her lip, and would not answer. Instead she stared at the page in front of her, twirling her pencil nervously.

"Upstairs in your room," said Joey softly. Her face looked anxious and upset.

George climbed the stairs and stepped inside their bedroom. Annie was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out the window.

"What happened?" he asked from the doorway.

Annie shook her head. "Nothing, really. I know it's just her temper. God knows I can empathize with her about that. Just give me another minute, and I'll be down to help Winky."

George was unsatisfied with her evasive answer. Something had happened to send his household into turmoil, and no one would look him in the eye. He had been made to understand from Bill and Lee that a house full of females could be like this, but he had never experienced it himself before today.

"Please tell me what happened," he repeated, walking over to sit next to his wife on the bed.

"She didn't mean it to be as hurtful as it was, I know that. I really do. I'm the one that's being oversensitive. But the part that kills me, George... is that she did mean what she said. She does wish it. They all do, at one time or another. Janie's just the only one who's said it out loud, to my face."

George was alarmed to see tears beginning to well up in his wife's eyes. Aside from tears of joy at the births of their children, he had not seen her so emotional since....

"What did she say?" he asked, as patiently as he could.

"Isn't it obvious? Our daughter wishes I was a witch."

A few minutes later, he stood in the doorway of the girls' room. "Janie, come with me," said George.

His daughter rose from her bed, hanging her head. George could see by the set of her jaw that she was not the slightest bit remorseful, but rather smoldering at the perceived injustice of her life.

He tossed her a jacket. "Put this on. We're going for a walk."

Janie looked up at him then in surprise. She had apparently been expecting some other form punishment.
George led the way. As they passed by his room, he paused to speak to Annie. "Don't wait for us for dinner.... We might be gone a while," he explained. Then he turned back to Janie and held out his hand.

He could see his daughter was utterly perplexed, but she trustingly placed her little hand in his and followed him down the stairs and out the back door. They strolled through the garden, toward the woods to the east.

After several minutes of silence, George began to speak. "You know, you really hurt her feelings with what you said."

"I said I was sorry," snapped Janie, defensively.

"Did you mean it?" he asked calmly, refusing to rise to her disrespectful tone.

Janie looked at him in confusion.

"Did you mean you were sorry she was mad at you, or sorry that you hurt her? Or were you sorry you lost control of your temper? Or did you just say it because that's what you're supposed to say when you're in trouble, regardless of what you really feel?"

"I... I...." Janie was at a loss, unsure of what to say.

"I know you're young, Janie; maybe too young to understand what I'm trying to talk to you about. But you're also a very clever girl, so I'm willing to bet you do. Tell me, why are you sorry? You can be honest - I promise I won't get mad."

"I guess... mostly sorry she got mad. And I didn't mean to hurt her feelings, either."

George nodded. "Thank you for being truthful. And I believe you; that you didn't mean to hurt your mum. But the fact is, you did. Do you know why?"

"Because I wouldn't clean up the bathroom when it was my turn?" she replied, sounding resentful.

George looked his daughter in the eye, and shook his head slowly. "That's why she was mad, not why she was hurt."

"But it's not fair!" she cried. "Domi says her mum never makes them clean up after themselves. Aunt Fleur just waves her wand and everything's spic and span. Roxy says the same thing! Why do we have to do all the work ourselves? We're the only ones!" she yelled, stomping her feet and thrashing her arms in an attempt to diffuse her anger physically.

George sighed deeply, and patiently waited for the tantrum to pass. He had seen them before, and was usually amused by the fact that two different little girls, separated by twenty-four years, could throw exactly the same fit. He wondered absentmindedly how many fellow Hogwarts students would be pummeled for their sins by his daughter in the future. After all, Annie had certainly flattened a wide swath of Ottery children in her day.

"Are you finished?" he asked her.

Janie took a deep breath, then nodded.

"First of all, you are not the only ones. I happen to know for a fact that Roxy has chores to do at her house. Second, what works in other people's houses doesn't work in ours. We have our own rules, and you will be expected to follow them, regardless of whether you agree with them or not. One of those rules is that everyone helps out with chores. And third, just because you can do something by magic, doesn't mean that's the way it should be done."

"Okay," muttered Janie, sounding unconvinced.

"Do you really mean that? Or is it what you think I want to hear?"

"A little of both," she confessed.

George chuckled. "All right. I'll accept that," he replied.

They walked a little further through the woods, holding hands once more, as the sun was slowly setting. The trees were brightly lit with the reddish light. George could see a few leaves were just starting to turn autumn colors.

"Do you know why I call you 'My Little Annie?'" he asked her.

"Because of my temper," she said, smirking ruefully.

George laughed. "That's part of it, true. Your mother has a ferocious temper as well. And the same struggle to control it. But you also have the same sense of humor. The same gift with sarcasm. The same sense of righteous indignation when you see something that's wrong with the world."

"What's 'righteous indignation?'"

"That's when you get angry for a good reason, and use your anger to help make something right."

Janie nodded, thoughtfully pondering the idea that anger could serve a positive purpose, not just a destructive one. "Like when you and the rest of the Order of the Phoenix fought against Voldemort?"

George slightly winced to hear his daughter utter the name, even after all these years. Old habits, he figured. "I suppose so," he replied. "Many people, not just the Order, realized it was silly to think that there was anything wrong with having a non-magical parent or grandparent. That it was wrong for people to make others live in fear because of it. It wasn't fair, and they got angry about it. What kind of person you are depends on the choices you make, nothing else."

Janie nodded. "And because of you, half-blood people like me are safe. Mum says you and all my uncles and aunts and even Granny and Grandpa were very brave fighters, and heroes, for standing up to fight against Voldemort."

George gave his daughter a half-smile. Of course Annie would have indoctrinated their children with that side of the story, the one that revolved around and glorified him. "Has your mother ever told you about when she was little?"

After thinking for a moment, Janie shook her head.

They had reached the edge of the forest on Weasley land, just where it ran up to the field surrounding the first little house of the village of Ottery St. Catchpole. They could see a rosebush had grown to nearly engulf the side of the fence facing them. The house had been painted slate blue, with black trim, at some point in the last decade.

"Do you see that house there, across the field?" he asked.

Janie nodded.

"That was where your mother grew up," he said, smiling as Janie's eyes grew wide with surprise. "She lived there with her grandmother, who loved her very much. You see, your mum's mum made some bad choices about her life. She made herself sick, in a way; sick in her mind, and her heart, and her soul."

"You mean, crazy?" asked his daughter, struggling to understand.

"Not exactly, but sort of. She was too sick to feel love anymore. She ran away from her family. And when your mum was born, she ran away from her as well. That's why your mum lived with her Gran - your great-grandmother Meredith."

"That's really sad, Daddy," his daughter said, her brow furrowed with empathy.

George nodded, pleased his daughter was moved by the tale. "When she was growing up, your mum felt different from the other children in the village, who all lived with their parents. They would tease her about it, and it hurt her feelings. It made her mad, as well."

Janie nodded, an angry look beginning to darken her face. "That's mean," she muttered. "Not fair."

"You're feeling righteous indignation right now, Janie," he explained. "And you're right. It's mean to tease someone about something they have no control over."

"Oh," she said, beginning to see the direction the lesson was going.

"You know, it's very hard on your mum to live in our world. She feels like everyone else is better than she is because they can do magic and she can't."

"But that's not true!" exclaimed Janie. "Magic doesn't make you better," she added, repeating the mantra of their household.

"You're right, it's not true. But imagine how you would feel if everyone around you, even your own little babies, could do something special that you couldn't."

Janie grimaced with the unfairness of it, recognizing now exactly how she had hurt her mother's feelings.

"And imagine how it would feel if someone you loved very much told you that you weren't good enough for them because of it; that they wished you could do magic when that's the one thing in the world you never could do?" he added, gently.

"Daddy, I didn't mean it!" she cried, throwing herself at him, clinging to his leg.

"I want you to remember that the next time you wish for magic to get you out of doing something you know you should."

"I promise!" she wailed through her sobs.

"All right, calm down now," he said, bending down on his knee to hug and comfort his distraught daughter. "I know you didn't mean it, and your mother knows it too. Just try to be a bit more careful of other people's feelings, the next time you throw a tantrum," he said.

"It's just too hard to think about anything else, when I'm mad like that," she blubbered, wiping her eyes and nose onto her sleeve.

"You're right again. See, I told you how clever you were. Maybe that's a good reason for working harder to control that temper, hmm?"

Janie nodded, sniffling. "I'll try."

They turned together and walked back into the woods. George found himself following his daughter's lead, and after a few minutes, they drew near to the old tree fort. The early autumn sky was aglow with a glorious sunset, lighting up the ancient, majestic willow that had been his childhood haunt. He knew his children had discovered the fort for themselves years ago, refurbished it even, and played here frequently, ignorant of its provenance. Thousands of memories floated to the surface of his consciousness, ready to be accessed in an instant.

He watched as Janie clambered up the tree into the fort, exactly like her mother had done countless times over the years. George felt warring feelings within him as he watched her. In one sense it was perfectly right, almost like destiny fulfilled, that his and Annie's daughter would play here just as they had. In another sense, it was almost unbearably painful: how had they come so far from that point themselves? Had it really been so long ago that they were children together, innocent and carefree? Had they ever really been innocent and carefree, or was that just a trick of memory?

He ran his fingers over "Cannons Rule!" carved about half-way up the tree's trunk. He could clearly remember gouging it into the bark to distract himself from the murderous rage he had felt that day, while Fred had been explaining to Annie the horror that had happened to Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets. He had said the words of the unforgivable curse over and over in his head that day, picturing Lucius Malfoy crumple and fall before him: Avada Kedavra, Avada Kedavra. He shuddered to think how impulsive, how ready he had been to commit murder at age fourteen.

His eyes were drawn then to a happier memory - the blast mark his wand had made near the base of the trunk. He kicked it lightly with the toe of his shoe, smiling as he recalled the look on Annie's face when his brand-new wand had shot off in her hands.

He gazed around, reckoning the three of them had spent upwards of fifty nights sleeping on the ground under this lovely canopy. He and Fred... precious Fred, too glorious and magnificent for this world... and Annie. Every one of those nights he lay innocently dreaming next to the girl who would become his wife, bear his children. The love of his life had been within arm's reach the whole time....

Next he traced the outline of the heart he had carved with their initials as Annie had waded in the neighboring stream the summer they were eighteen. They had both just confessed they were in love, using the actual words for the first time.

"I love you."

Those words echoed across all the intervening years like they were nothing but a short hallway. How many millions of times had they said it since?

"Who are they, Daddy?"

"Hmm?" He hadn't caught what his daughter had said - being off somewhere else entirely.

"Who are G.W. and A.J.?" Her legs were dangling from the trap door entrance, and she was leaning forward a bit in order to see him.

"Who do you think they are?" he asked, curious.

"Merrie says they were a muggle prince and princess, but there's no castle anywhere around here, so I don't think that's right. I think it's you and Mum. G.W. is for George Weasley, and A.J. is mum's name."

"Angharad Jones. You are a clever girl, Janie," he praised her, thinking to himself that Merrie was partly right as well. For all their struggles and hardships, for all the pain and sadness they had endured, Meredith's prediction of a happily ever after had come true. Their life together had been a sort of fairy tale. He chuckled to himself then, thinking of how the habitual muggle misuse of words was rubbing off on him.

"Was this place here when you were a boy, Daddy?"

"Not until your mum and I built it, with your Uncle Fred. We were younger than you are now, when we did it."

"So this is your tree house?" she said, her voice full of wonder.

George nodded. "I met your mum when we were seven, right here in these woods. We were best friends, the three of us, like Merrie and Roxy and Domi. We used to play together almost every day. When my brother and I left to go to Hogwarts, we were all of us a little sad. We missed each other. We wrote letters to each other, you know, and would see each other in the summers, but it was still hard to be apart."

"But she's a muggle, Daddy! Didn't you get in trouble?" she asked, incredulous, as she climbed back down out of the fort to stand on a lower branch.

He smiled. "We kept it a secret. Nobody ever found out, until we told them a long time later."

Janie nodded, eyes wide, enthralled by the story she had never heard before.

"Then when we were older, your mum and I realized we loved each other even more than friends, but also still as friends. And I began to understand that there is nothing in the world more important than love - that it's worth any risk, any sacrifice," he explained.

"And that's when you joined the Order of the Phoenix, and fought against the Death Eaters and beat them at the Battle of Hogwarts. And you rescued Uncle Harry from the house he grew up in, and that's how you lost your ear. And Mum says how you are her hero and her knight in shining armor and you rescued her loads of times. And I think you are the bravest man ever," she exclaimed, nearly breathless.

George smirked at his daughter's recitation of the exaggerated, overblown list of his accomplishments. He could hear Annie in every word Janie said. He held out his arms, silently offering to catch her if she jumped to him. She sat herself down on the branch she had been standing on, then bounced off into his arms. He set her on the ground, then knelt before her so he would be at her eye level for what he wanted to say next.

"You probably don't know this part of the story, but your mum was every bit as brave as I ever was. She knew she was in danger, as much if not more than any of us, but she chose to love me anyway. She would have been killed if they ever found out about her and me, and she knew it. And then somebody did find out. Did you know that one night, your mum was attacked by a Death Eater?"

"Did you save her?" she asked, eager for a new tale of derring-do about her heroic father.

George shook his head. "I didn't. I tried to, but I didn't get there in time. Your mum saved herself. She took on a bad wizard, and won. Like I said, she's a very brave person."

"All by herself?" Janie gasped, astonished at this revelation.

George nodded.

"I've never heard this story before!" she cried.

"Your mum doesn't like to remember it. It was very scary for her, and she was sad about killing someone. It's a difficult thing to live with, no matter how necessary it was at the time," he explained solemnly. That was yet another internal struggle he shared with his wife. Only, for some stupid reason, the deaths on his hands had resulted in medals of honor from the Ministry.

"And after my brother, your Uncle Fred died, we were all very sad. Sometimes I forget how sad she was... how he was her very good friend, and she missed him terribly. Back then, I thought I would be sad forever. But she was strong for me. She helped me remember how to be happy again. She rescued me."

"Why didn't she ever tell me?" she asked with childlike innocence.

"It's just not something most grown-ups do. But it's important that you to know how amazing your mum is, regardless of whether she can do magic or not. Will you promise me to remember that, the next time you get mad at her, or wish she was something she isn't? Will you remember that she's a hero, too?"

George and Annie's daughter nodded. "I promise, Daddy," she said.