“Hermione?” she heard George call from the back room. “Is that you?”
“Hi, George. You did say ten o’clock, didn’t you?” Hermione asked, looking about the shop.
“Yeah, yeah I did.” She could tell his voice was strained more than usual, and she held her wand aloft, wondering if there was something or someone lurking in the room.
“Are you alright, George?” she asked, making her way toward the little black curtain which separated the back room from the rest of the shop. Gasping with surprise, Hermione watched as George attempted to lift an odd, black contraption. It was large and bulky, with sharp edges jutting out at random angles.
“What on earth is that?”
George looked up with a grin. “I have no idea. Let’s see, shall we?”
Hermione eyed the black object with suspicion. “Why don’t you use magic to lift it?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. George dropped his head, a lobster-red flush rising to the surface of his skin.
“I can’t find my wand. I came home late last night from the Cauldron and fell asleep under the counter, actually” he said embarrassedly.
Hermione sighed and raised her wand. “Accio George’s wand!” There was a clatter from the main shop, and George’s wand flew into the room. He caught it effortlessly and grinned at Hermione.
“Thanks, Hermione.” Hermione tried to suppress an exasperated snort and failed brilliantly.
“Fred was always-” George began and faltered. Hermione could not hold back her grimace, and turned away, hoping George had not noticed. It always came back to Fred or Ron. They were there in every conversation, every sentence, every word. Will it always be so awkward? Hermione thought. How is it possible to move on with life when the dead refuse to leave? What if George doesn’t want to move on? What if I don’t want to move on? Taking a deep breath, she turned back around to face George. He was glaring at a dusty shelf as if it was about to burst into flames.
Silence circled the room, and Hermione began to feel as though it were about to suffocate them.
“Where should I put my trunk?” she asked, her words slicing through the tension, emotionless. It was easier not to feel - easier to ignore the voices.
“Come with me.”
The stairs creaked ominously as the two of them made their way onto the first floor. George led Hermione down a short corridor, stopping outside a very small door. He stood back, and she turned the handle.
“I’ll let you settle in, then,” he said quietly. “If you need anything else, then I’ll be downstairs in the shop.”
Hermione nodded. She wondered if he could get through the door in the first place. It was so low and narrow she could barely fit through herself.
Oh this is just ridiculous, she thought waving her wand. She watched as the doorframe slowly expanded, as the gnarled wood bent in submission to her wand, and as the grains and lines warped across the surface like Flobberworms.
She bent down and opened her trunk, pulling out her socks and underwear first. With a flick of her wand, they flew toward the chest of drawers standing in the corner. The drawer creaked open, and the clothing slipped delicately into place. Living in the flat above Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes had been Harry’s idea. Neither George nor Hermione had felt comfortable bringing up the topic of living together, but Harry had enquired after Hermione’s living arrangement one day during an after-work drinking session at the Leaky Cauldron. George had stammered while Hermione had blushed, and eventually the two had agreed that it made sense. George and Hermione would share the rent”it was a lot cheaper than remaining in separate flats.
Hermione thought about the awkward embarrassment she had felt that night at the pub with Harry, Ginny and George.
Why am I embarrassed? she thought as she sat down on the bed, watching a pair of her shoes walk slowly across the wooden floor towards the wardrobe. It’s only George.
Suddenly, something sharp and hot poked her in the back. She leaped up from the bed with a piercing shriek. Whipping out her wand, she faced the room, her back to the wall. Her eyes scanned the room, thin slits darting backwards and forwards. There was nothing there. She could hear George hurrying up the stairs.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” he yelled, brandishing his wand wildly.
“Something stung me!” Hermione said in disbelief. “I was sitting on the bed, and something just-”
“Oh, is that all?” George interrupted. Hermione stared at him, nonplussed at the relief in his voice. “I thought you’d been attacked by some vengeful house-elf or an enchanted rolling pin, or that you’d discovered the thirteenth use of dragon’s blood. Now that would be the answer to our financial problems-”
“Is that all?” she asked, her voice shaking with repressed anger. “Is that all? I was attacked by some invisible predator, and you’re asking is that all?”
George laughed. “It was probably an Irate Indiscriminate Incendiary.”
“What on earth is an Irate Indiscriminate Incendiary?” asked a confused Hermione.
“Well, about three months ago, I dropped a box of Wild-Fire Whizz Bangs, and I didn’t find them all, you see, so…” his voice trailed off, and a sheepish grin spread across his face as Hermione stared at him, utterly exasperated. “You’ll get used to it.”
Hermione whirled around with a huff to face the window. Irate Indiscriminate Incendiaries indeed. She grabbed the pillow from the bed and began to pull off the case. It had an ugly yellow stain she found rather disturbing. How on earth am I supposed to live in a place where rogue fireworks roam free? she thought, giving the pillowcase a stab with her wand. It was refusing to come off. This is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous! Several sparks flew from her wand, landing on the pillow, and she had to extinguish them with a short spurt of water. I could almost hex Harry and Ginny for pressing me to move in here. One of those Bat Bogey Hexes Ginny is so fond of would do the trick, actually. She threw the pillow onto the floor at George’s feet.
“Pardon me?” he asked her. She spun back around to face him while reaching for another pillow.
“Oh, nothing,” Hermione muttered. She hadn’t realised she was speaking aloud.
“Look, Hermione,” began George. “I know this is going to be strange for a while, but you’ll learn how to avoid the, er, surprises.”
Hermione scowled at the pillow on the floor. But a voice of reason whispered in her ear, a voice she could not ignore, no matter how many Incensed Indistinguishable Inferno’s, or whatever they were called, attacked her.
“It seems that I do not have a choice,” she replied, raising a single eyebrow. She walked over to the window; at a flick of her wand, it opened silently. “But I will not live in a place which smells like one of your Portable Swamps.”
George woke to aching bones and a thumping headache. He was lying next to a stack of plain cardboard boxes with an obscenely bright WWW emblem displayed on the side. At least I made it home this time, he thought as he peeled himself from the dusty wooden floorboards and licked his lips. His tongue felt thick and fuzzy and tasted of stale beer. He straightened himself up slowly wary of his stiff bones and headed up the stairs for a long, hot shower and a toothbrush.
As he rummaged through the piles of dirty clothes on the floor for something preferably unstained, he realised the absence of his wand.
“Merlin, Morgana, and all things Quidditch! Where’s my blasted wand?” George cursed out loud and hurried down stairs.
He stumbled about the shop, knocking over half-empty shelves of Wonder Witch products. His eyes were scrunched up tight in an attempt to block the blinding morning light; it felt as if The Weird Sisters were playing a gig inside his head. The wand was nowhere to be seen.
He could not remember much from last night. He recalled agreeing to meet Lee and Angelina, but not much else. All George knew was that he must have managed to stumble back to the shop and ended up spending the night beneath the till. Where in Merlin’s most shaggy beard is my wand? he thought, holding his head as the Weird Sisters decided to up the tempo. His burning eyes roved over the counters and shelves and empty floor space, but he could not see it anywhere. Might be in the back room, he thought to himself. It was not likely, but he felt naked without his wand; waiting for someone to come into the shop was not really an option.
He was in the process of lifting some strange heavy object which, through his pounding head ache, he could not seem to remember anything about, when he heard the front door click open.
Thank Godric! he thought, then gasped with realisation when he remembered who it probably was. Hermione! How could I’ve forgotten?
“Hermione!” George called, his breath rasping. Mouldy Voldy! I’m out of shape, he thought as he struggled with the thing. “You’re here!”
“You did say ten o’clock, didn’t you?” Hermione’s voice wafted in through the curtains.
“Yeah, yeah I did,” he replied, grunting with the effort. How do Muggles survive? George stared at the mystery object defiantly, his arms throbbing.
“Are you alright, George?” Hermione’s voice was full of confusion and concern. He could hear her making her way across the shop and through into the backroom.
He heard her pull away the curtain which led to the backroom.
“What on earth is that?” she asked in a perplexed tone.
George looked up with a grin. “I have no idea. Let’s see, shall we?”
His smile faltered. She looked as forlorn and downtrodden as she had on Christmas Day. Her eyes were red with dark purple bags beneath them, as if she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a long time. George supposed that she hadn’t. After all, when was the last time that he had been able to get through the night? Whenever his eyes slipped shut, Fred’s deathly smile seemed to taunt him, luring him into a place he did not want to go to, a place where that night was relived from every angle, from every moment, from every smell and touch, from every crash, every burn. Every death.
Hermione coughed, and George pulled his mind from the thought of those restless nights. There was no use dwelling on those things during daylight.
Hermione eyed the black object with suspicion. “Why don’t you use to magic to lift it?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. George dropped his head with embarrassment, as if losing his wand after a drunken night out with his mates wasn’t shameful enough.
“I can’t find my wand,” he mumbled into his chest, avoiding Hermione’s scrutinising gaze. “I came home late last night from the Cauldron and fell asleep under the counter.”
George’s heart leapt with relief as Hermione sighed and raised her wand. “Accio George’s wand!” she called. There was a clatter from the main shop, and George’s wand flew into the room. He caught it effortlessly and grinned at Hermione, trying to regain any sort of self-respect he could muster.
“Thanks, Hermione.”
Hermione made a very unHermione-like snort.
And suddenly George said, without thought, “Fred was always-” then he stopped. Fred was always the one to lose his wand, not me.
Fred.
He turned away from Hermione and leant against the black thing, trying to compose himself. Now’s not the time, Gred, he thought, avoiding Hermione’s gaze. They stood there, silent and awkward until Hermione finally spoke.
“Where should I put my trunk?” Her words were sterile, unfeeling “ and perfect for breaking through the memories and pain suspended between them. George turned back around, biting his lip, and cleared his throat.
“Come with me.”
He led her up the stairs and past the bathroom, pointing it out along the way. He reached Hermione’s room and stood back, watching her. She looked so sad. She looked so sad all of the time. He wondered if he looked that way. Yes, he thought. I probably do. She reached for the handle and turned.
“I’ll let you settle in, then,” he said quietly. “If you need anything else, then I’ll be downstairs in the shop.”
Hermione nodded. He wouldn’t have been able to get into that room in the first place. Perhaps she would fix it for him. He had never been very good at structural charms.
He turned around and walked back toward the staircase. There was something else, too, something else that kept him from entering the room. He would never tell Hermione, but that had been where Fred had worked on all his own projects. Of course, he and Fred did most things together, but there had been moments when they had preferred to be alone. George laughed bitterly at that thought. What he wouldn’t give now to have his twin brother back in his life. He would willingly give up any form of personal space to just see Fred again, to talk to Fred again, to be one of two again.
George waited downstairs in the shop while Hermione settled herself in the flat above. He did not want to intrude on her privacy. He tried to focus on the merchandise he was pricing, but his mind kept on wandering to the most trivial worries. Harry had suggested Hermione moving into the flat. George had already thought of the possibility, but there was something about his relationship with Hermione that had stopped him from bringing up the subject. His reaction to her at Christmas as she had leant against him was still branded in his mind and each night, in-between the land of the conscious and the land of dreams, his thoughts would drift to the warm curve of her body against his, the feeling of her hands on his chest, her breath on his neck…
What if I walk in on her naked in the shower? George thought. Years ago, the thought of walking in on Hermione in her birthday suit would have been a hilarious thought. He and Fred would have spent days talking about nothing else. But those days were gone.
What if she walks in on me when... he thought as his cheeks grew warm with embarrassment. No, that would be unbearable.
George remembered the first time Molly had walked in on George thinking about Alicia Spinnet. The look on her face was a classic, and Fred had given him grief for months. Fred…
Does Hermione ever think of Ron like that anymore? he wondered. George shook his head. Why am I thinking about that? It’s Hermione.
George yelped as a piercing scream shattered the silence. Dropping the box of Patented Daydream Charms in his hand, he leapt up the stairs two at a time. He sprinted into the room Hermione was to stay in, wand at the ready.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” he yelped. Hermione stood opposite, backed against the wall, her eyes roaming the room.
George clutched his side, panting. He was not as tall as Bill or…or Ron. He was a much bulkier build, more muscular, like Charlie. Well, he had been, back when he had been younger and a Quidditch Beater. But now, he thought. Now he wasn’t like that anymore. Leaping up those stairs had taken the wind from him.
“Something stung me!” Hermione said in disbelief, her eyes wildly scanning the room. “I was sitting on the bed, and something just-”
“Oh, is that all?” George interrupted, flinching comically at her stern gaze. He looked away and grinned. “I thought you’d been attacked by some vengeful house-elf or an enchanted rolling pin, or that you’d discovered the thirteenth use of dragon’s blood. Now that would be the answer to our financial problems.”
“Is that all?” she asked. “Is that all? I was attacked by some invisible predator and you’re asking is that all?” She pursed her lips, and George laughed at her attempt to mimic his mother.
“It was probably an Irate Indiscriminate Incendiary.”
“What on earth is an Irate Indiscriminate Incendiary?” asked Hermione, shock spreading across her face. George wondered if she’d eaten a Rash Rum Ball by mistake.
“Well, about three months ago, I dropped a box of Wild-Fire Whizz Bangs and I didn’t find them all, you see, so…” His voice trailed off at the look of utter exasperation on Hermione’s face.
To be honest, George himself had been caught unawares by a rogue Incendiary. They were nasty things, especially if you were taking a leak. George grimaced at the thought. He began to say, At least you weren’t on the loo, but he paused, finishing with, “You’ll get used to it,” instead.
Hermione sighed. “It seems that I do not have a choice.” She walked over to the window; at a flick of her wand, it opened silently. “But I will not live in a place which smells like one of your Portable Swamps.” George sniffed the air, shrugged, and left the room, noting the newly enlarged doorway. It smelled fine to him.
Women.