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sundrop-writes · 24 days ago

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I'm Not Angry (Anymore)

George Weasley x Slytherin!Fem!Reader

I’m not angry… anymore. (Well, sometimes I am.)

I don’t think badly of you. Well - sometimes I do.

It depends on the day, the extent of all my worthless rage…

I'm Not Angry (Anymore).

Part One: The Lion and The Serpent

Summary:

You and George have never been friends.

You have known him for a long time, and even if your schoolyard hatred toward him turned into hesitant co-operation during the War (still paired with mild annoyance), the two of you never became friends.

You working at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes is simply out of convenience for the both of you. And even if you can't bring yourself to leave the awful job, it's certainly not because of the weird attachment you have formed with one of your bosses.

You and George Weasley are definitely not friends.

George Weasley x Slytherin!Fem!Reader. Enemies to Lovers. Pre-Smut, Heavy Plot Build-Up, Romance. Set Post War.

Word Count: 29,900

Harry Potter Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist

Full warnings list and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: the reader character goes by she/her pronouns and has a vagina (though as with most of my fics, most of the pronouns used throughout are you/yours); this fic does use Y/N and L/N (as in Last Name); there are no descriptions of the reader’s race, weight, hair colour, eye colour, or general looks other than a few statements about George being taller than the reader (and even then, it does not say how much taller he is than her and it does not state that she is ‘tiny’ or petite) - this is based off the idea that Oliver Phelps is 6 foot 2 and most people would be shorter than that by comparison; there is descriptions of the reader wearing very hyper feminine clothing, including skirts, dresses, and high heels (and it is stated that she wears high heels on a regular basis), and it's stated that she regularly wears makeup (I had a very specific clothing aesthetic in mind for this character, I couldn't help it); the reader is a Slytherin, and this fic explores the ‘evil Slytherin’ trope because the reader used to be somewhat of a bully but she joined Dumbledore’s Army during her time at Hogwarts and joined the Order of the Phoenix when she turned 17; the reader is the same age as Fred and George and was in their year (so DA took place during her seventh year and the Battle of Hogwarts took place when she was 19 or 20); the reader is a Pureblood and comes from a family that upholds typical Pureblood values - while she used to believe in those things (or was taught to) she broke away from her family and is not a Pureblood supremacist; the reader has a father and other unnamed family members who are Death Eaters, and clearly expected her to follow in their steps; this takes place three years after the Battle of Hogwarts (so the reader character is 23 or 24 in this fic, but you can imagine her to be whatever age you want her to be) - there is some discussion/explanation of the fallout from the War; even though Fred is not the love interest character, this is a ‘Fred Lives AU’ (I can’t put George through all that); this might be slightly OOC Fred - but I do think this is genuinely how Fred would react if one of his siblings had a crush on a Slytherin (the Weasleys can be petty); mentions of canon deaths (Cedric Diggory); there is some ACAB themes - the reader is wrongfully arrested (but George helps to keep her out of prison); George has some trauma over Fred almost being killed; general themes of trauma and PTSD (because both the reader and George fought in and experienced a war); the reader has trauma because she comes from an emotionally abusive and neglectful household (though there are no mentions of her ever being physically abused at home); alcohol and drinking - in this part, only the reader character gets drunk (in a flashback), and she gets drunk with the purpose of drowning out emotional pain, but this is only a one-time thing and she does not have a drinking problem; mentions of vomiting due to drunkenness (does not happen during the fic) (also general mentions of vomit because they sell Puking Pastilles at the shop - but it doesn’t happen during the fic and there’s no detailed descriptions of it); mentions of the reader being raised with House Elves and having a specific beloved House Elf; mentions of a snake being used to scare the reader (if you have a fear of snakes, this might trigger you, but it does turn out to be a rubber toy snake and not a real one); mention of the reader having to experience Umbridge’s canon torture (writing with the blood quill to the point where it slices her hand badly); there is mentions of the reader being right handed (her right hand is her wand hand and the hand she uses to write), so if you’re left-handed, sorry; something that could be considered forcible confinement - George handcuffs himself to the reader as a joke and loses the key, leaving them stuck together; I believe that is all for this section. The next part will have smut (a lot of it) - so don’t get attached to reading this story if you don’t like smut.

A/N: I know that I said this was going to be late, and I genuinely thought it was. But I was feeling a bit better today (even though I am still mostly feeling crappy) and I wanted to get it done so that I can take a break to rest before I start work on editing the next part. And I am really excited to see what people think of this so far, so please enjoy. I am obsessed with their dynamic, and I hope you love it just as much as I do!!!

...

“Um, excuse me, Miss?”

You were distracted away from your work when someone called for your attention - you had been opening and unpacking a new box of Screaming Yo-Yos, but you put that aside for now. You looked up and put on your best (rather fake) customer service smile, the shelf in front of you still half empty, only halfway done as you abandoned it to help the customer.

You rose up from your back-aching kneeling position on the floor and wiped your hands on your apron - an ugly, obnoxiously bright orange one with the Weasley W on the chest, your uniform. You were allowed to wear whatever clothes you wanted with it, but the colour easily ruined whatever outfit you tried to put together. A bit of public embarrassment to go along with the forced nicety that you had to participate in while doing the job. You straightened yourself to better speak to the person - a woman in her forties who most definitely wasn’t the regular clientele for the shop.

“Yes?” You said, your voice bright in a very forced way, your fake smile continuing to beam toward her as she responded with a grin.

“My son absolutely loves this kind of stuff, and I was wondering if this would be a good gift for his birthday?” She asked, gesturing toward a large fireworks display behind her.

Your eyes wandered toward the obligatory ‘must be at least sixteen years old to purchase’ sign that the twins had put on the fireworks display. One that Professor Hermione Granger had been down their throats about adding (‘in a large, legible font’ she had specified). She had been very adamant about it after multiple of her First and Second Year students had nearly taken fingers off from lighting the fireworks and then holding onto them as they exploded, despite the clear instructions on the packaging.

“How old is your son?” You asked, trying to sound politely curious rather than cautious.

You knew better than to scare away a potential customer. You didn’t need Fred down your throat again about how your ‘sour attitude’ was driving away business.

“He’s ten. About to turn eleven. I wanted to get him something for his big day.” She said, clearly beaming with pride.

“Those are a bit, uh… advanced.” You said, choosing your words very carefully. “I think I know something much better for someone his age.”

You put a gentle hand on her shoulder and guided her over to a section of products that the twins had recently come out with - animal themed masks with animated, moving features that made genuine, loud animal sounds when the wearer put them on. The eyes also blinked in time with your own eyes, and the mouth moved in time with your own speech behind the mask.

They were a big hit with younger kids, especially for sneaking up behind people and scaring them with a loud sound. Even if you found the display to be loud and annoying, you did have to admit that it was adorable to see smaller kids put the masks on and get so excited to become their favourite animal.

“Morph-O-Masks.” You said, motioning toward the display with an outstretched, showy arm that felt far too familiar of your red-haired bosses. They were rubbing off on you in a painfully obvious way. “They make genuine animal sounds, have moving tongues, eyes, and ears, and we just released a Hungarian Horntail-”

“Oh my little Gareth would love this one,”

The woman said, clearly excited, as she picked up the classic lion mask. It had a large, furry mane and the toothy mouth that opened wide to let out a loud, realistic roar.

“He’s been hoping to get into Gryffindor, just like his father. I didn’t go to Hogwarts myself. I’m American, you see, so I went to Salem. But I moved here when my Walter proposed. And we had sweet little Gareth a few months later. Fat little baby, he was-”

“That is our best seller,” You commented with a nod, trying to gently cut off the woman’s irrelevant rambling.

“Thank you so much, dear.” The woman thanked you, and much to your internal annoyance - she then pulled you in for a tight hug.

You rolled your eyes sharply over her shoulder, your fake smile dropping into a harsh scowl where she couldn’t see. As your annoyance toiled on, you were simply thankful when the hug lasted no more than a three count (because you were most definitely counting in your head). When she pulled away, you directed her to the cash register where Fred was waiting to check out the purchase and then you got back to stocking the yo-yos.

Your thankfulness ended the moment you turned around and found the other twin waiting for you. George was lingering behind you, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

“‘That’s our best seller’,” He repeated your words, mocking you in a girlish tone that did not at all sound like you.

“Shut up,” You griped, rolling your eyes again, shoving your hands sharply into the pockets of your apron in order to resist the urge to hit him.

You had to force yourself to remember that it wasn’t your school days anymore, and you couldn’t afford to lose your job as much as you could afford to lose a few house points back in the day. You had to control the petty nature of your temper much more now.

“No, really, that was great.” He continued on, still grinning with an intense aura of satisfaction.

It made you want to slap him. Not because you didn’t like to see him smiling, but because it felt like he was mocking you. You hated the way his smile curled humiliation into your gut, and you wanted that feeling gone.

“You’re finally settling into the job now, eh?” He added on gleefully.

“It’s work,” You shrugged, eager to end the conversation.

You attempted to move around him to get back to unpacking the yo-yos - but with the isles cramped so tightly together and with his body so stupidly broad, he easily blocked your way, giving you a very punchable smirk as he purposefully stood in your way. Before you could squeeze around the other way, he leaned in closer, forcing you to take a step back as he moved to grab something off the Morph-O-Mask display.

You hated that you caught a whiff of his cologne along the way, during the moment that you were a bit too close to him as he moved toward the display and you couldn’t move away fast enough. The scent was far too strong - a cedarwood and lavender combination that you hated, and even so, his hard day’s work was causing the slightest bit of sweat to seep through. It was truly awful.

(That’s what you told yourself, anyway.)

“I see you still haven’t sold any of the serpents yet.” He chimed, holding up a scaly bright green serpent mask from the display. “If this was a house tournament, I would say that Gryffindor is winning,”

You knew that it was no coincidence that the original line of masks had consisted of a golden yellow lion, a green serpent, a bronze eagle, and a black and white badger. The badger let out a very terrifying snarl and had rather creepy beady red eyes - which had to be the reason you hadn’t sold many of those, not due to any lack of loyalty from Hufflepuffs.

It wasn’t your fault that kids were more attracted to the ones that came in the secondary release than they were to a simple round-headed serpent with a flicking tongue and a very dull hissing sound. They loved the different types of dragons, a spider with snapping fangs and dozens of eyes, even the black cat that purred and flicked its ears sold out more often than the serpent.

Typically, you wouldn’t engage in such a stupid, childish conversation with George, but something had been on your mind considering the original four for a while. Especially when you thought about how many times you had to restock the lion mask in the few short weeks that the Morph-O-Mask line had been out.

“Did you consider the inherent bias?” You posed, tilting your head at him. “This is a shop owned by two Gryffindors, therefore you are bound to have more Gryffindor customers - especially due to the time you two spent performing grassroots marketing back at Hogwarts, which primarily took place within Gryffindor Tower,”

George’s face knit with intense thought as you explained this, and you were glad that for once, he was pensive and actually taking in your words, rather than cutting you off with some kind of joke.

“And even if done unconsciously, you put more care and thought into the design of the lion mask, so it did turn out to be the best one.” You hated to admit it, but it was true.

Between the quality of the fur and the intense daring beauty of the eyes - the way it raised its mouth and let out the deep intimidating roar - it was beautiful. The serpent - which was supposed to be a fellow predator - looked dull in comparison.

“And it’s the one you’ve used primarily for marketing,”

You pointed to the front window, where the lion mask was on a stand advertising the new product. The one in the window was charmed to open its mouth and roar every minute or so, putting on a show to bring people in and check it out.

“It’s like you set up the serpent to fail.” You spoke with finality. “And then you blame it on a poor stock girl for not shilling it hard enough,”

You ground intense sarcasm into your final words, taking the green mask from his hands and tossing it back onto the shelf with the large pile of its unsold brothers, finally skirting around him as he stood there shocked into silence. He was genuinely impressed by the amount of thought you had put into it. He finally snapped out of his shock by the time you had knelt back down beside the box of yo-yos, continuing to neatly stock the shelf with them.

Of course, George wouldn’t leave the topic well enough alone. He turned around to bother you once again, coming to hover over you like a shadow while you worked.

“Well, perhaps next time we should consult a Slytherin for further research and development,” He said, giving you a grin. “Especially one as thoughtful and intelligent as you.”

“Let me know when you find one who’s willing to donate her time.” You replied, brisk and cool and entirely dismissive, grabbing the finally empty cardboard box from the yo-yos and shuffling back to the storage room. You were thankful to have an excuse to finally flee away from George, escaping the conversation.

You were behind the thick wood of the storage room door by the time that George wandered over to the front counter, visibly sulking in front of Fred.

“That was smooth.” Fred told him, entirely sarcastic.

“Oi, that was the longest we’ve ever gone without her insulting me. I am making progress.” George replied, determination ultimately distinct in his voice.

“Yeah, at this point, you’ll be going on your first date in your fifties and be married by the time I have grandchildren,” Fred joked, sounding proud of himself, even standing a bit taller to compliment his words.

“You don’t even know if Angelina wants kids,” George argued easily, eager to navigate around the subject of his pathetic crush.

“Yeah, but at least I know she wants me.” Fred nagged, putting emphasis on the word in a way that made George roll his eyes. “At least I’m not hung up on some stone cold Slytherin bit-”

“Hey!”

George chastised, knowing that he was somewhat hypocritical now because he would have easily hurled that kind of language at you during your school days. He was understanding when Fred heaved a sigh and shook his head in return.

“Maybe I like cold.” George added on dully, still trying to justify himself to his brother.

“Then go stick your cock in the freezer.” Fred sighed. “Maybe it’ll help you get over this nonsense so you can start seeing someone who’s actually good for you.”

George didn’t say anything further, not wanting to waste his energy and words on trying to explain it to a brother who just couldn’t understand. There was no one else for him, no one else who lived in his heart - no one else but you.

Even if you refused to look his way - he couldn’t look at anybody else but you.

…

Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.

Part of you - well, most of you - had to wonder how the hell you ended up here.

It had been three years since The Battle of Hogwarts. Three seemingly winding and endless but so very short years since the great Harry Potter had delivered the final blow to the dark side, killing Voldemort and for the most part, killing all the festering ideas that he represented.

And not surprisingly, the entire Wizarding World was still very much in the process of healing, even years later.

Many of Voldemort’s followers had fled Hogwarts in the wake of his defeat, and they had quickly gone into hiding or fled the country altogether, fleeing like cockroaches from the light rather than taking a stand without him there to lead them. Some of them were still being hunted down and persecuted for their crimes; internal investigations were still ongoing at the Ministry, looking into who was responsible for such a dark wizard even having a foothold to so easily take control of the government and even Hogwarts.

Hogwarts had been reconstructed and normal classes had resumed, but it was clear that the effects of the War were still lingering on the place that had once been a battleground. Many veteran professors had retired in the wake of what had happened, leaving positions vacant and desperate to be filled. This caused a strange kind of immaturity as freshly graduated wizards and witches stumbled along, teaching new students in subjects that they had barely mastered for themselves.

And you - your life had turned into one big joke. Literally. You were working at a fucking joke shop, when just a few short years ago, you would have absolutely scoffed at the idea and completely dismissed it as impossible. A past version of yourself would have endlessly mocked the version of your future self who wore that embarrassing orange apron, publicly branded as a slave to two annoying pranksters that you absolutely detested during your school days.

And one of the worst parts?

You couldn’t even truthfully say, not even in the private of your own mind, that you hated those two annoying redheads now as much as you had in the past. Because you truly didn’t hate them as much. You weren’t even sure if you did hate them now.

The War had softened you. You still weren’t sure if it was for the better or if it had weakened you greatly - if it had made you tired and complacent. But the whole experience had definitely softened your opinion of the Weasleys and how much you paid attention to things as petty as house rivalries.

Yes, you were a Slytherin. Yes, you were a Pureblood.

Yes, you had been raised in a world much different than the one you currently lived in. But it was the changes along the way that had made you the person you truly were.

You had been raised in rich nobility, constantly catered to by House Elves, never knowing love or affection from a constantly cold father who only showed you disappointment and disdain. You had been raised to believe that you were inherently better than others because of your surname, because of your blood status, because of your family’s generations old wealth and magic. You had been trained from a very young age to think that nothing was more important than upholding the reputation of that name because of all the wealth and generational magic behind it.

Your mother had been married to your father via a marriage contract - something not uncommon in Pureblood society, something you believed would be your fate. Though your mother had died when you were young and you had very few memories of her - one of those memories being her telling you that you shouldn’t marry young, you should go out and explore the world and ‘find your own path’, you still had been raised to believe that the ways of your family were the right ones.

You had been raised to believe that your father’s word was as good as Merlin’s Law. For a long time, you believed that you would go to Hogwarts - not to get an education, but to carry on the tradition of Slytherin nobility, getting good grades to show off your magical prowess, and make others aware of your family’s ongoing perfect Pureblood reputation. And then, when you turned seventeen, you would be sold off in a marriage contract similar to the one that had bonded your mother to your father. And it didn’t matter if you were happy or not. That part never mattered.

Your life never revolved around something as frivolous as joy, laughter, and pranks.

Perhaps that was why you developed a natural contention for the Weasleys - particularly Fred and George. Because they spent so much of their lives smiling. They were always so happy, seemingly for no reason. They came from a magical family, they had Pureblood lineage, but their family didn’t represent or value the same things that yours did. They didn’t care about reputation or blood purity or upholding traditional values. They cared about happiness and love and friendship.

You spent a lot of your days trying to believe that they were stupid and you were truly better off than they were. You spent a lot of time telling yourself that you would be better off in the long run because you studied more than they did, and you had a parent who cared about your future - someone who was setting you up for a good life. You spent a lot of your time pushing down feelings of loneliness - or telling yourself that those truly superior to their peers always end up lonely.

While the twins spent their days surrounded by friends, smiling and joyful, you spent your days walking the halls of Hogwarts alone, swept up in your own thoughts, constantly worried about your future. To you, it seemed like they didn’t think farther than a few days ahead with the way they acted. And it bothered you. They bothered you. They were a nuisance.

The twins spent so much time laughing - boisterously, loudly, uncaring of who heard them or who they annoyed in the process. Even when they spoke of paranoia for authority figures, even when they voiced a passing worry about their mother’s iron fist - truly, you knew that they didn’t worry about getting in trouble. Because if they did, they wouldn’t actually carry out half the things that they ended up doing.

Meanwhile, your days were riddled with worry - cautious of everything from your posture to your hairstyle to the length of your skirt, knowing that if you made even the slightest poor impression, it would become a rumor that got back to your father. And it made you stressed - and that stress made you sour. And it was something that you easily took out on the Weasleys, especially the loud, annoying Fred and George.

…

Any time you so much as crossed paths with Fred and George while at Hogwarts, your day was instantly ruined. All it took was a simple sighting of the two heads of bright red hair for any calm to immediately leave you. As soon as they were near, your blood pressure skyrocketed and bitter words came flying out of your mouth.

You hated the fact that the castle was so sprawling and large and yet somehow, you kept seeing them so damn often. Part of you couldn’t think that it was simply a coincidence when you saw them. When they kept appearing in the corridors that they knew you took to class, lingering in the dungeons even when they didn’t belong there, lurking near the Slytherin table at meal times. Part of you had to believe that they kept doing these kinds of things on purpose simply to annoy the hell out of you.

“Ugh, you two haven’t been expelled yet?” You sneered the words in their direction as you walked by, your shiny black heels clacking on the stone floor as you made your way towards Potions class. “I would say that this place has gone to the dogs, but I’ve actually had pitbulls more well behaved and more easily trained than you two idiots.”

They were huddling close to each other, standing off to the side of the large corridor, and you were instantly suspicious of them and slightly upset that there was nothing you could immediately accuse them of. You could sense that they were up to no good, as always, and you knew that the evidence of that fact wouldn’t come to you cleanly.

“Oh, Y/N, it’s you.” Fred gave you a feigned, sarcastic smile, and the part of you that thrived off conflict paused your stride and allowed him to keep speaking rather than passing on by. “I thought I heard all the innocent wildlife fleeing in terror.” He put a dramatic hand up to his ear, as though actually listening for this. “Careful, brother, you’ll want to avoid the large cracks when the ground opens up to swallow her back into the dark pit from which she came.”

It was the typical kind of words he hurled at you. He believed that you were ‘pure evil’ in human form, and he prided himself on coming up with increasingly creative ways of stating that fact.

“I’m surprised that you can hear anything with all the gunpowder and confetti in your ears.” You jested back. “How many IQ points did you lose after that last explosion? Do they have to let the two of you tag-team your exams now? I mean, if you think about it, the both of your brains added up might make it to Troll level.”

“We do just fine. Better than most, actually. Especially if the scores were adjusted for academic favouritism from a certain greasy-haired creep.” Fred sighed harshly in return, crossing his arms firmly.

It was something he had talked about for years, both to your face and behind your back - the idea that you were only considered to be academically gifted because teachers favoured you, especially Snape. And when asked how you achieved such good grades with professors who weren’t your Head of House, he posed another, even more ridiculous sounding theory. He genuinely believed that your father paid them off - that because you were so ‘stinking rich’, you could afford to buy your good grades.

Notwithstanding that his older brothers certainly didn’t have the coin to buy their grades and two of them had made Head Boy in their time. And when you pointed that out to him, he only stopped off steaming mad without admitting that this fact blew huge holes in his theory. No - he would much rather go around spewing massive lies about you (that many of the other Gryffindors believed simply due to Fred’s charisma and popularity) rather than accepting the truth that you truly worked hard and studied. Rather than accepting the fact that you were genuinely smart, while he on the other hand was a lazy, dumb oaf.

You were about to open your mouth to argue passionately against the point when George jumped into the conversation.

“Is that a new perfume?” He added on, dramatically sniffing the air to further punctuate his point. “Or just the scent of ravaged innocent souls coming off you? It is rather lovely, I must admit.”

Your stomach twisted in an odd way as you weren’t sure whether to interpret this as a compliment or a joking insult. He was clearly playing off his brother’s words, dancing around with the implication that you were evil - but he said that you smelled nice when Fred often said that you ‘stank of the burnt cinders off hell from miles away’. The odd feeling became even more jarring when Fred let out a bright, jeering laugh at the words and high fived his brother in response.

As terrible confusion rusted through you, you couldn’t conjure a clever response. Your next instinct was to flee. But of course, you couldn’t let them know that you were running away - you couldn’t show anything resembling panic or fear. You couldn’t bare your neck to a pack of hungry lions.

“Well, as delightfully immature as this is, I am afraid I don’t have the time to stand around here and compete in this stunning battle of wits,” You announced, truly grinding sarcasm into your words to drive home your point as you began to walk away. “Perhaps next time you can come a bit more prepared and actually challenge me. I have to get to Potions.”

“Aww, how disappointing for us.” George replied, faking a whine in his voice that made you clench your jaw with annoyance. “Another time, then?” He tacked on, waving at you and giving you an oddly sincere smile as his eyes gleamed with something you couldn’t perceive as hope.

“Say hello to Snape’s back mole for us!” Fred added on, shouting at your back.

Even as you walked away, you knew that the twins were lingering in the corridor for a reason. Some terrible reason. They stayed in that same spot for far too long, paying far too much attention to you, their eyes glued to your every move as you crossed over the courtyard.

By now, you knew them well enough to know that something was up, and it made you highly suspicious of everything around you - so that when something snagged your toes, you instantly paused, rather than continuing on with your usual steps. When you looked down, you let out a small huff. Of course. Your eyes followed a very thin, near-invisible tripwire to a bucket that was strung up in a tree above your head.

You could only imagine what kind of sickening mixture was in the bucket. So you made a point of dramatically stepping over the tripwire, and you smiled to yourself when you heard the twins swearing and sighing with disappointment from their spot far off behind you. And before you finally left for class, you turned around, spotting them in a poorly concealed hiding place in one of the window-like openings around the edge of the courtyard.

And then, just to prove a point, you blew them a kiss off the tip of your extended middle finger, wanting to show them that they truly hadn’t bested you. Your stomach made that strange twist again when George made a distinct motion of catching the kiss before he winked at you while Fred chose to flip you off in return, clearly mouthing the words ‘horrid bitch’ at you.

You couldn’t linger too much on it, though. You had to get to class.

…

Back then, you thought of the Weasleys as nothing more than daily annoyances. You certainly didn’t think that they would be your future employers. You didn’t think that they would be people that you would be fighting a war alongside.

You thought your life was perfectly planned out ahead of you. You thought that treating others poorly and being generally mean was just a reputation that naturally preceded you - something that you lived up to very well. Everything in your life was finite and decided, and you were just playing the role that had already been drawn out for you.

Until Voldemort made his return.

For you, it was a clear line in the sand.

After years of walking around blind, sleeping through life - all it took was seeing Cedric Diggory’s limp, dead body in the grass to awaken you.

You had lived your life talking about your perceived superiority over others, listening to your father talk about it near constantly. But the longer your life went on, the less you actually believed it to be true. The longer you spent away from home while at Hogwarts, the more it all felt like an act to you; one as fake as the smile you put on at the shop for the customers.

So when it came time to take the next step - when your father urged you to scorch your arm with a Mark in loyalty to a man risen up from the dead and start killing others who were supposedly ‘lesser’ than you, and therefore undeserving of life - you just couldn’t do it. You didn’t have the true pride to back up beliefs that were never your own.

So you turned away from your father, and you did the one thing that you could remember your mother telling you to do. You found your own path.

You had been the only Slytherin to join Dumbledore’s Army, to much hatred and suspicion from the others at first. And even though they had attempted to exile you, it felt like the correct, obvious choice. You knew that you weren’t accustomed to such things, but it felt like the right thing to do.

While it was the first (quiet) rebellion you made against your father’s choices for your life, it was also the most time you had spent around the twins outside of the classes that you had with them. They kept making jokes about you secretly being Umbridge’s mole within the group - which Hermione had assured them and everyone else couldn’t possibly be true, only for you to find out in the most spectacular and horrific way exactly how she had been so assured. And eventually, the twins soon became more adjusted to the idea that you truly didn’t have any ulterior motives.

But that didn’t mean you were opposed to kicking their asses in dueling practice.

(Or any other time.)

…

You had grown used to the stares and ugly looks that you received whenever you walked into a DA meeting. As much as Hermione vouched for you and assured everyone that you were not intent on betraying them to Umbridge, people had a very difficult time getting used to your presence there. They simply couldn’t adjust to the idea that a Slytherin, especially one who had a Death Eater for a father, genuinely wanted to oppose Voldemort, and was actively training to do so.

But you weren’t going to spend your time making noble rallying speeches in order to justify yourself to them. You had your own personal reasons, and that was more than enough for you. You were sick of your father’s ways. You knew that you weren’t any better than someone like Hermione Granger simply because of the name you had been born with. And you wouldn’t stand by and watch people like her be murdered or be forced into performing the killing yourself because your father thought you didn’t have a backbone.

You were sick of a world where you were nothing more than an ornament to him - something quiet and beautiful to help maintain his reputation until you would be married off to someone else to continue doing the same for them. Being sold into a future where you would be forced to produce babies who would be fated to carry on the terrible cycle.

Even if you would be killed for it, you needed to stand up and fight back.

You knew that you were likely the only one in the room, other than Harry Potter himself, who was actively thinking about the worldly consequences of these meetings. You were likely the only other person thinking about the possibility of your own untimely death. Everyone else was just showing up for their own personal satisfaction, and the fact of not falling behind in their DADA efforts while Umbridge was actively restricting their education.

On this day when you walked into the Room of Requirement as the other DA members trickled in, you attracted only enough attention to receive a few solitary sour looks. You had to guess that people were getting a bit more accustomed to you attending the meetings by now. But you picked up on a particularly harsh conversation from a group of huddled boys. You easily recognized the twins, and you thought you knew the others as Dean and Seamus… something. You didn’t know their last names.

“And have you seen who’s in The Inquisitorial Squad? It’s all Slytherins, it’s just a matter of time until-” Seamus whined.

“Until that stuck up bitch, L/N, rats on us. Yeah. It was a complete mistake letting her join.” Fred easily cut him off, entirely unafraid to call you harsh names, whether you were listening or not.

“When have you ever met a Slytherin with good intentions?” Dean posed to the small group.

“Guys, listen, I think you might be overreacting-” Surprisingly, George tried to oppose them, but his words were swiftly cut off.

“Seriously, who’s ever heard of a good Slytherin?” Seamus sneered.

“Well just because I joined this group doesn’t mean I’m ‘good’.” You said, stepping between the twins and forcing yourself into the conversation.

This caused the boys to either shamefully stare at the ground or divert their eyes off to the side as they clearly weren’t expecting to be overheard by you. George was the only one who dared to look at you, his expression clearly confused at your choice of words.

You decided to explain yourself.

“Just because I oppose my father’s traditional hatred of Muggleborns and I don’t believe in mass murder doesn’t mean I’m not still a heinous bitch. It doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped - what was it that you said, Fred? That I strike fear into the hearts of children and rot plantlife with my every breath?”

“Yeah.” Fred grumbled quietly. “I may have said that.”

“My point still stands.” Seamus griped bitterly. “There is no such thing as a good Slytherin.”

“Then it’s irritably clear that you’ve never picked up a book in your short, useless life.” You spat back at him.

As more confused looks were thrown your way, you dove into a stash of mental research that you had reserved for exactly this occasion, and began spouting off facts.

“Kory Anderson, during The Great Fire of 1916 that nearly wiped out the entirety of Hogsmeade, she rescued six children from homes within the village and then cast barrier charms to contain the fire until it naturally blazed out. She was a Slytherin.” You announced confidently.

“Yeah, but-” Dean began to speak up, and you drove right over whatever he had to say.

“Isaac Lahesen - he invented the first wide use Pain Relief Tonic in 1756. The original recipe is still widely followed and commonly used today. He was a Slytherin. Gally Poulter - died from Ancromantula venom poisoning due to his experiments with the venom that later lead to the invention of the common Anti-Bruise Tonic. His efforts also helped to conserve the Ancromantula as a species and brought them back from the brink of extinction-”

“Alright, jeez, we get it.” Fred sighed, finally cutting you off.

“I could go on.” You replied plainly, trying not to sound too smug. “It pays to take your head out of your arse every now and then and insert it into a library book.”

You turned to stomp away then, and you were entirely surprised when you felt someone catch your elbow. You whipped back around to glare at the person automatically, and had to forcibly crane your neck upward to meet George’s surprisingly soft gaze. You knew it was him in an instant.

Mostly because Fred always looked at you like you carried hellfire in your shoes wherever you went, and George most definitely did not.

But you could also easily spot the difference between the twins because George had broken his nose during a Quidditch game against Slytherin during your third year. A game that you had been sitting in the stands for - forever banned from participating in ‘something so brutish’ by your father. It had been a nasty move from one of the Slytherin players who had swung their Bludger’s bat at his face in a fit of anger when they realized that Harry had caught the snitch and they had lost.

The bone growth around the break gave his nose bridge a distinct bump near the top that Fred did not have. It was something you found quietly endearing, along with his soft eyes. Something you had only recently admitted to yourself in the quietest, darkest recesses of your mind.

“What?” You snapped at him, wondering why he had stopped you and why he was touching you.

He recoiled from the touch quickly, as if only then realizing just how long he had been holding onto your arm.

“Sorry.” He muttered quietly. “And I’m sorry about them, too.”

He added on, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder to point toward the spot where Fred, Dean, and Seamus were still standing - where Fred was now showing the two boys something inside a large box. Likely some of their disgusting, horrible ‘products’ - but it made the boys laugh and smile. You almost envied their care-free nature. But you definitely didn’t envy their ignorance.

“They’re being knobheads.” George declared confidently. “I know it probably doesn’t mean much, but I never thought that you were here to spy on us. You’re actually really good. With the spells, and whatnot, I mean. You’re really talented.”

You felt a sickly fullness - almost like an ache in your chest coming from deep within your stomach - as you looked over his expression and knew for certain that he was being sincere. As it truly hit you that this wasn’t some dumb prank where he would laugh in your face after you accepted the compliment. Still, nonetheless, as your insides squirmed, your outer shell became prickly once again in a well practiced defense mechanism.

“Why would I care what you think?” You spat back harshly. “You can barely cast a protection charm and you waste most of your talents coming up with stupid, useless joke products anyway. I don’t need you to tell me that I’m talented in order to know my worth, Weasley.”

It was only a moment later when the words had already left your mouth that you realized you had inadvertently complimented him in return. You became overwhelmed with a desire to smack him when he began smirking at you. That desire became almost crippling when he leaned into you, crowding tightly into your personal space before he whispered something in a low baritone that stuck to your ear terribly well as he reached into his pocket.

“Perhaps sometime I could get you alone and show you how well I waste my other talents,” He said, forcing his hand into yours and giving you something.

Between the strange psychological mind game of his words and the way he quickly retreated, you thought for sure whatever he had given you would be a trick - that it would blow up or poison you or something. Your eyes flickered, panicked, from the back of his head as he resumed his spot beside Fred to what he had placed in your hand, and you were eerily surprised to find a seemingly perfectly normal sweet.

One of your favourite sweets, actually.

It was something you would have purchased from Honeydukes for yourself - a kind of hard candy that came in many different flavours, wrapped individually in plastic. They turned your hair and eventually your skin the same colour as the candy the longer that you sucked on them - but for you, that was never the appeal. You simply enjoyed the taste. Your personal favourite was the sour green apple ones, and you almost always left Hogsmeade with a large bag of them in hand and ended up with green streaks in your hair from sucking on them throughout the days.

It was almost as if George had known that your personal stash had just run out.

You stashed it in your pocket, still suspicious of it, wondering if he had tampered with it somehow. He was likely waiting to laugh as your skin broke out in boils or you vomited viciously and had to beg him for the cure. And it was only when you were back in the security of your dorm that night when you found it in your pocket once again that you decided it would be safe to open it. If he had tampered with it, he wouldn’t get the satisfaction of watching you suffer from the results of his prank.

But there wasn’t one. It had simply been a random thoughtful gift.

When George saw you the next day with a small lingering streak of green in your hair, he smiled to himself.

…

The practice that you got from DA was invaluable when you fought during the Battle of Hogwarts - much to your father’s undisguised hatred, on the side of The Order of the Phoenix, as an official member. As much as he absolutely hated your new affiliations, he definitely found a way to get back at you for ‘dessamating years of carefully crafted heritage’ - as he had put it when he confronted you on that day.

When the battle ended and everyone on the losing side began to flee, you weren’t at all surprised to find out that your father had escaped, rather than being among the dead or the few who the Order managed to capture on site. You couldn’t have been so lucky.

Perhaps it was the karma of your younger years coming back on you - the fact that you had so harshly, thoughtlessly bullied others, tossed words around so carelessly, at one time truly believing that you were better than others simply because of the family that you came from. Now it was all coming back to you, life turning around to spit in your face, showing you what a truly rotten person you were.

Your father went to Gringotts and cleaned out your personal vault (as well as his own), taking every single bit of gold that your mother had left you when she had died. And it soon became obvious to you that he used the money to flee the country - not because he needed it. A small sack’s worth of the gold would have supplied him on his fugitive’s journey. But he took all of it simply because he thought that you were no longer worthy of it.

You were denying your ancestral ways, and now, you were no longer worthy of your ancestral riches.

It was a cruel slap in the face, and it left you abandoning any plans you had to apprentice as a future Potioneer in Ireland - or even the plans you had to take a break and vacation in the Maldives for a while and recover from The War.

Instead, fate had you dawning that stupid orange apron in London to earn a living for once in your life - taking up the first paying job that you were offered, especially after you heard what the hourly wage was. Perhaps the Weasleys were a bit stupid with money after not having much of it for most of their lives, but they were paying far above the average rate that most other jobs in the Alley did, so you had to jump at the opportunity.

All of it was so damn ironic.

The products that you had degraded and openly hated since the moment you had heard about them were now something that you had to proudly promote to customers. The pranksters you had called annoying with every opportune breath were now your bosses, and dictated your life every single day. Even if it felt backwards, you started to establish a new, quiet life. The twins let you live in the flat above the shop, and while you hated being constantly surrounded by everything Weasley - eventually, you got used to it.

But even that gentle peace was disrupted.

Only a few short months after The War, you were blindsided. Members of the newly formed Department For Internal Investigation for The Ministry of Magic, along with pre-existing Aurors, showed up at the shop with a warrant for your arrest. The grounds of said warrant? Your blood relation to a known Death Eater. You were being accused of helping your father and others flee the country, along with conspiracy against The Ministry. You were being accused of feeding them information from the inside to aid in their evasion of current law enforcement.

It was DA all over again. Only this time, it was on a scale that could end up with you in prison for the rest of your life.

…

George found himself thankful for finally having a slow day at the shop.

Now that school age kids were returning to Hogwarts, the summer rush was finally over and the hectic chaos of those three months was finally behind them. It did only leave a small breath of relaxation before the turbulence of Halloween and then eventually Christmas, very busy gift buying seasons for the Wizarding community, but at least they had the quiet of September to hold onto while they still could.

George could have never pictured him and his brother being this successful when they were just tossing around ideas, writing things down and drawing crude diagrams on scraps of parchment while huddled together on their bedroom floor back at the Burrow. And he knew that he should never be rueful of having ‘too many customers’ - but it was nice to have a breather every once and a while, especially when the shop got as intensely busy as it did sometimes.

Perhaps he was just getting too old, but he found himself getting sick of the chaos every now and then. His sixteen year old self likely would have beat him over the head to know that even so much as thought those words, but it was true.

They were taking this as an opportunity to rearrange the shop, shifting around some product displays to make things look nicer and flow easier, as well as refilling inventory that had gotten wiped out during the height of busy season in Diagon Alley - those last few days that people had been scrambling to get school supplies before September First. Inevitably, hordes of young people had ended up inside the shop, getting things to bring to Hogwarts that definitely were not on their list.

George actually felt a swell of pride to know that there had been an official amendment to the Hogwarts Code of Conduct, one that specifically banned the possession and use of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes products by any student (or professor, for that matter). It was something that had stuck around a lot longer than the ‘educational decree’ that Umbridge had made back in the day concerning the twins’ earlier products.

McGonagall had even sent the twins a letter about it personally, kindly asking them not to sell products to any students. They had sent her back a personalized Jack-In-The-Box that featured a tattered Umbridge as the ‘Jack’, jumping out and screaming once it reached the end of its song, running away from a terrible beast that chased her from within the box, along with a note that bluntly said ‘not a chance, Professor’. And though the amendment stayed written in the Code of Conduct, it was silently agreed that they would disagree on the matter.

It had practically tripled their sales since then, because students followed in their mischievous footsteps and loved to do something simply on the basis of being told not to do it. Banned items are the most sought after, of course.

(Fred and George had even started putting together something that they called ‘The Hogwarts Special’ - a box full of their most popular items bundled together at a discount price, all in disguised brown paper packaging rather than the bright colorful packages that they had become known for, better to sneak into a school trunk without being caught.)

As George heaved another large package of Skiving Snack Boxes into the middle of the floor, his eyes landed on you.

You were working on a display for the center of the store - a combination of new products and their most popular classics, your face knit in concentration as you arranged the products in a way that you thought was most appealing on the display stand. Somehow, even wearing your slightly stained work apron with your hair in a messy but practical style and your makeup mostly smudged off from the hard day’s work, you were a truly gorgeous vision. You would always be gorgeous in his eyes. But there was something truly goddess-like about you as the midday sun poured in through the front window to brush across your skin.

George’s eyes lingered on you for a few moments longer, trying to work up the nerve to say something. He always struggled with what to say to you. And the longer he stood there behind his large stack of boxes, the more the voice in his head screamed: she hates you.

Well he knew that hate was a strong word. As much as he knew that’s how you might have described it, he knew that it was likely not the right word for how you truly felt. If you had been crassly annoyed with him when the two of you first met due to his pranks and the stupid house rivalry, those feelings had never developed into hate. Especially not after your time in DA together - not after fighting on the same side of a war.

Some foolish part of him liked to think that after working side by side for so long, the two of you could actually be considered friends. But he wasn’t sure that’s how you saw it.

When your fingers fumbled and you dropped a Screaming Yo-Yo, causing it to fall to the floor and roll away (the charmed mechanism inside of it letting out little yelps as it rolled across the floor), George bent forward and caught it as you rushed to chase it before it rolled underneath one of the shelves. His breath caught in his chest when the two of you brushed hands around the small object.

“Oh, here.”

“Thanks.”

Both of your quiet voices merged in the air as he handed you the toy and you rushed back to a standing position, holding the object awkwardly and staring at it as you fiddled with the string, avoiding eye contact with him.

“Stupid little-” You muttered out angrily, and then sighed. “I would say that it jumped out of my hands, but it’s not nearly as bad as those display fireworks,”

You said, pointing toward a display model of one of the fireworks tubes, which was designed to constantly burn and sputter on the back end, causing it to flip around and fly on a string without ever burning out. Wrangling it onto that string in order to tie it to the display - that had been a particularly challenging time.

“Sorry about that,” George said quietly, giving a nervous chuckle. “The magic behind it was actually quite tricky, you see-”

His train of thought was cut off by the sound of the bell ringing above the door - he was surprised that they had customers at this time when this early in September was usually such a dry time for them. When he looked up to greet whoever it was, a frown cut into his face when he instantly realized that these weren’t clients.

There were about five people, all dressed in formal black robes, topped off with varying kinds of very businessy headwear and stiff expressions, instantly recognizable as Ministry officials. It was quite clear that they weren’t coming into the shop looking for Puking Pastilles or fireworks - they were here for something else.

Whatever that something was instantly worried him - George’s stomach jolted with anxiety as he wondered if all their business permits were in order (that was Fred’s job, and ordering stock was his). But surely, if it was a simple matter of paperwork, they wouldn’t send this many officials out to take care of it.

No - this had to be something much worse. This was something big and terrible and that worried him much more.

“Good afternoon.” George greeted them with a smile (hopefully not looking too nervous) as he forced his spine tall and proud, feigning confidence in front of people who would judge him for his appearance and his mannerisms. “How can I help you fine people today?”

Fred craned his head up over the shelves to get a look at who it was, instantly picking up on the nervous tone in his brother’s voice where few others would. He had been deeper inside the store at the counter near the cash register, going over the inventory numbers that the three of you had counted up the night before, looking to confirm them with his superior math skills. (Of course, now he was very much distracted from that task.)

The one leading the pack of stiff looking officials - a particularly stiff man with many wrinkles, who was wearing a black bowler hat to cover a seemingly bald head, someone that George had never seen before and did not recognize - answered George by reaching into the pocket of his robes and pulling something out, extending a piece of parchment out to show him.

“I have a warrant here for the arrest of one Ms. Y/N L/N.” He said plainly, his tone entirely dull and official. “I was informed that she is employed here.”

“Warrant?!” You cried out, having been staring at the parade of strangeness from beside George - in a moment your face and body went from the dull tired that came with a long day to stiff with anxiety, clearly shocked. “That can’t be right, that’s bullshit-!”

You moved to charge toward the man, and George put a protective arm in front of you. He wasn’t quite sure if his instinct was to protect you from the group with their eyes now locked on you, hands moving to their wands, or if he was intent on protecting them from a wrath that he knew you could easily rain down upon them. (Either way, he was protecting you from your own temper, protecting you from flipping out mindlessly on law enforcement and racking up additional very real charges to add to the ones that they had on your warrant now that were - like you said - bullshit.)

You did fall silent and hovered behind George, letting out a grunt of frustration - but still, he didn’t move his arm, clinging onto your hip beside your apron and causing you to grip his wrist in return while you scowled at the officials past him.

“Look, we don’t know anything about this.” Fred told them - by now, he had woven his way through the shelves to stand at George’s shoulder. “She’s worked for us for a while but we don’t know anything about-”

It appeared that he was about to claim your innocence - or at the very least, claim that he and George never knew of any criminal activities that you had partaken in.

“What are the charges?” George gaped. “Obviously you’ve gotten this all wrong.”

“Yes, obviously.” You added on with a hiss, tense behind George, clearly eager to fight them once again.

“You may take a look.” The man said, prodding the paper toward George once again. “But I can assure you that I am not wrong.”

George let out a grunt of dissatisfaction and snatched the warrant from the man, and his eyes began flickering over the words at lightning speed. You crouched in closer as you read along with him - he saw something about ‘conspiracy to commit heinous acts’ and ‘conspiracy against the Ministry of Magic’, but none of it was blatantly clear to him - nothing read as a clear, specific crime. And he knew that you hadn’t done anything wrong.

“This is bullshit!” You cried out again. “Conspiracy? I’ve been here playing with fireworks and stupid puke sweets for the past few months and you think I’ve had time to commit conspiracy?!”

“Can you please confirm your identity, Miss?” The man asked, his voice still deadpan and lacking any emotion. “Are you in fact Miss Y/N-?”

“I don’t have to tell you shit.” You said, slowly backing up.

George’s stomach sank when two of the Ministry lackeys rushed to you, more of them taking different routes to get to you as your hand went to your apron for your wand. He ached to fight them off for you, but he knew it wouldn’t end well.

“Look, Y/N, just go with them!” Fred shouted, his tone deeply frustrated.

You refused to listen.

Instead, you ran toward the door, clearly looking to get to the Apparition point outside before they could catch you.

But they were well-trained Aurors, and they were faster. One of them struck you down with a wordless curse, making you limply fall into one of the fresh displays, knocking down a spray of colourful boxes along the way. Fred heaved out a groan and smacked a hand across his face, clearly upset about the mess. George instinctively ran to your aid, only to be yanked back by Fred, a harsh grip digging into his arm that barely held him back, every single cell in his body screaming at him to help you. But he was forced to watch on in horror while they put some kind of binding curse on your wrists and took your wand out of your apron pocket, confiscating it.

“On what grounds?!” George shouted - his body coursing with intense rage, on the verge of tears.

He finally shook himself out of Fred’s grip, but only because his brother knew him too well, and knew that he was still in shock now and would do nothing more than witness the horrible things unfolding in front of him. He could do nothing more than watch as they lifted your limp, barely conscious body from the floor, holding you up by your shoulders.

“What grounds do you have for this arrest?!” He screamed, clutching the warrant so hard that he began to tear holes in it with his fingernails.

The leader nodded toward the two people who were holding you, and George couldn’t race across the shop quickly enough to catch them as they stepped out into the street and then Disapparated with you in a blur. His feet felt numb on the floor as he practically tripped over the mess, and he was left with a shaking hand on the doorknob and tears swelling in his eyes, left staring out the glass panes at the empty spot that you had left.

Now he had nothing more than a harsh pain in his chest that made him want to scream.

They were taking you away. They were stealing you from him. After all the work he had done to make sure that you would stay with him, that you would be safe. They were taking you away.

“Sir, I am sorry that you hired someone of such credence without knowing it. Typically their forms of deception are-” The bowler hat man began to speak again, and George flared with anger.

“What are the charges?” George asked again, whipping around to face the man.

George eyed Fred, who was strangely quiet, staring him down for once in all their years, with what was an unreadable look. He had to wonder why Fred wasn’t as upset about this demonstration of injustice as he was, even if he didn’t like you that much.

“I have already given you the warrant, Sir, which is my only necessary duty under Rule 36, Section B-”

“This is a piece of rubbish!” George yelled, cutting off the man’s rambling. “It’s so unreadable - it - it doesn’t mean anything,” He added harshly, throwing the now crumpled warrant at the man’s feet.

The man sighed and kicked it aside.

“I have copies.” He said under his breath, seemingly more so to himself. “The charges are Conspiracy to Commit Fraud, Conspiracy Against the Ministry of Magic, Aiding and-”

“What does that even mean? What evidence do you have?” George pressed. “I’ve known Y/N for years, she hasn’t done anything wrong. You’ve got this all wrong, you’re mistaken.”

The man paused, hanging a deadly silence over their heads as George stared him down and Fred stared George down, all very tense. George was seemingly the only person in the room who had absolutely no idea what was going on. He was the only one who thought it was entirely shocking that you had been arrested.

“Is Miss L/N not related to a known Death Eater? Several, actually, if I’m not mistaken?” The man posed.

George’s throat tightened harshly.

They were arresting you because of what your father had done?

That was so unfair. So grossly unfair. That was plainly unjust. It was horrible and unethical and - just stupid. It was bullshit.

“Yes, but-”

“Well I’m terribly sorry to break the news to you, Mr. Weasley, but typically those regrettable values are passed on in families. Nobody has seen or heard from Mr. L/N since The Battle of Hogwarts, and we have a feeling that his daughter will know exactly where to find him.”

“She won’t.” George spat back. “She hasn’t spoken to her father in years, I know that for a fact.”

George hated to lie, but he knew that if he did tell the truth, they wouldn’t believe him. They would never believe the fact that the last time you had seen your father, it had almost ended with you dead for your ‘betrayal’ of the Pureblood line.

“Well Mr. Weasley, I’m afraid that the Ministry can’t simply take your word for it. We must use our own tactics and gather the information for ourselves.”

His stomach grew sickly at the implication of what ‘tactics’ they would use, thinking that you would come back to him as a hollow shell of your former self after being tortured by Dementors for hours, destined to never give them the answers they wanted to hear. And that was only what he knew about the things they did. Merlin knows what other things he couldn’t even imagine that they might do to you.

Before George could further argue - before he could defend you and explain that you hadn’t spoken to your father, that you hated him, that you had no idea where he was - the man left the shop and Disapparated himself as well, leaving George hurt and speechless.

But only for a moment.

Then, everything within George was telling him to spring into action. You hadn’t done anything wrong, and there was nothing they could truly charge you with. If they were extorting you for information about your father, they weren’t going to get it. So they needed to leave you the hell alone.

George was going to free you.

He stormed past Fred to the store room, grabbing his coat off the hook he had hung it on in order to lug around the boxes, and he put it on and started straightening up his appearance a bit. If he was going to the Ministry (or to Hogwarts to seek back-up first, he wasn’t quite sure yet) then he would need to look nice to ensure that he would be taken seriously.

“What are you doing?” Fred asked, slowly trailing behind him into the storage room, entirely curious about his shift from shock and anger to determined urgency.

“Going to get help.” George announced, as it was the only thing he was sure about.

Help from where or who, he wasn’t quite sure. Perhaps he should go to Hogwarts and find Hermione - he could grab the crumbled warrant off the floor along the way and have her read it. She would know how to decipher the bullshit wording and find some kind of loophole within it.

“Are you going to close up and come along or are you staying back to watch the shop?” George asked, his mind still busy with planning his next move.

Fred gaped at George, his expression somewhere between disgust and shock. Again, George felt a strange uneasiness in the fact that he genuinely didn’t know what his brother was thinking. Perhaps he was intimidated by the idea of taking on the Ministry, or perhaps he was just hesitant to leave the shop when they had so much work to do. But George knew what had to be done when such harsh injustice had just been done right in front of his eyes.

“You can’t be serious.” Fred breathed out quietly, almost timidly, the words leaving him like air seeping out of a balloon.

“I am.” George easily confirmed, firm and confident now. “Maybe we can go to Dad, or-”

“Dad’s department would have absolutely nothing to do with this.” Fred fired back, edging on rude.

“Then I’ll go to Hermione. She’s read books about this sort of stuff - hell, she’s probably read through the laws that they are currently breaking by holding Y/N without cause, and-”

George moved to walk around Fred, going to get the warrant so that Hermione could look it over. Much to his shock, Fred stopped him by raising a hand to the middle of his chest.

“Georgie, slow down.” He said, using the nickname in an attempt to ground his brother from what he believed to be a small fit of insanity. “Look, I know you had a very strange, misguided, schoolboy crush on this girl once, but-”

“That’s not what this is about.” George ground out through his teeth.

Yes, George had confided in Fred that he fancied you - only to have Fred mock him relentlessly for it. But even if he had absolutely no romantic inclination toward you, seeing someone be arrested without cause would still truly bother him. It just wasn’t right. If it had happened to you or anyone, it wasn’t right.

“Then what is it?” Fred pressed. George chose not to dignify this with an answer, hoping that his brother was having a momentary brain aneurysm that would soon end and that they would be back on the same page again. “As far as I’m concerned, dear brother, they just took care of our problem for us. We should be thanking them.”

George clenched his jaw angrily. This was the first time in nearly ten years that he had genuinely wanted to hit his brother.

“You can’t be serious.” George hurled Fred’s words back at him, harsher than Fred had originally said them, causing him to roll his eyes.

George stepped around him and walked back out into the shop to find the crumpled up paper that he needed.

“Come on, what’s so great about Y/N anyway?” Fred whined. “Any sense of good looks she has is easily wiped out by her horrible personality-”

“She’s not nearly as horrible as she was.”

George argued gently, reaching down to pluck the paper off the floor.

“Besides, this isn’t about great or not great - this isn’t about stupid personality conflicts. This is about right and wrong. And you know it.” George told his brother firmly. “She shouldn’t go to Azkaban simply on the basis of being related to a Death Eater when she hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s shown that she’s nothing like her father, so she doesn’t deserve to be arrested for his crimes just because they’re too bloody stupid to find him.”

George stared Fred down, and Fred looked swollen with thought for a moment, taking a heavy breath and clenching his jaw as he clearly hesitated to speak. Obviously, he wanted to argue - but he knew that George was right.

“And might I remind you that she saved your life. And you would not even be standing here with breath in your lungs to whine and complain without that ‘horrible’ witch that you claim to hate so much.” George added on smugly, unable to resist.

Naturally, this caused both of them to think back to The Battle of Hogwarts, when you had indeed saved Fred’s life. A Death Eater had fired off a curse that caused a ceiling to collapse above Fred’s head, and if not for your quick thinking to hurl a non-lethal stunning curse at Fred that threw his body out of the way of the debris, he would have been crushed under hundreds of pounds of falling stone and killed.

Of course, he whined at you for days after he woke up from the minor head injury that you caused by knocking him into one of the few still-standing walls. And to this day, he had never once thanked you for saving his life. And you never brought it up, because whenever you did, all he did was whine about the scar he now had - one that was well disguised in his hairline and barely noticeable. He always said that you had ‘deliberately maimed’ him to get back at him for the years of name calling.

The two of you couldn’t get along over anything.

“You’re gonna keep lording that over my head, aren’t you?” Fred mumbled quietly, rolling his eyes.

After a few moments of Fred’s mind churning hard, the thoughts clearly simmering behind his eyes, he took his wand out of his pocket and flicked it toward the front of the shop. In a few smooth movements, he closed the blinds, locked the door, and switched the sign from ‘Welcome’ to ‘Closed - Please Come Again Later’.

“Fine.” He huffed out, clearly defeated. “I guess you’re right. But I don’t have to like it.”

George beamed a smile at this brother.

“We’ll go and find Hermione, then?”

“Strangely, I think we’ll have better luck calling in a favour from our big brother.” Fred noted. “The stick up Percy’s arse might actually be useful for once.”

George hadn’t even thought of that. But that was why he and Fred made a very great team.

“And for the record, I still don’t like Y/N.” Fred hastily added on as they walked upstairs to leave via The Floo Network. “But I do hope that this finally gets you laid.”

George sharply rolled his eyes at this, and chose not to reply - mostly because he knew that coming from Fred, it wasn’t entirely intended as a joke.

…

You were surprised by how passionately the twins defended you. They stood up as character witnesses for you in court - and had even called upon others to do the same.

Perhaps that was why you were still ‘settling into’ a job that you continuously claimed to yourself was only temporary.

As much as you were annoyed by the constant sounds and bright colours and the steady stream of customers, you found a certain sense of comfort in the shop. You were annoyed by the twins, but when it mattered most, they had backed you up. They had saved you. And you knew that people needed laughter now more than ever, even if you weren’t in on the joke.

…

You were pleased that even if your life didn’t necessarily make you happy, you had established a sense of routine that made your life relatively stress-free.

You would wake up, make yourself a cup of tea, get dressed and put on some make-up (even though the obnoxious orange apron ruined whatever ‘look’ you typically tried to go for, you still did pride yourself in your appearance). And after eating something easy for breakfast, you would make your way downstairs to help George open the shop.

Sometimes he would bring you a pastry as a thanks for being awake so early, which you found strange because it was quite literally part of your job. But you still found yourself accepting whatever danish or croissant he brought you - and taking his copy of the Prophet to read on your lunch time break when Fred finally stumbled out of bed to come into work.

George was much more of a morning person, so he and Fred had an agreement that if George opened, Fred would be the one to stay later to close up when needed.

They balanced each other out in a lot of ways.

Fred was better with numbers, so he attended to the books. George was better with the artistic aspects, so he designed the packaging for new products. Fred was much more outgoing and easily charmed new people - so he spoke to people about getting WWW products into shops in other places around the world. And he even made business deals to get them rare and new ingredients for products that they wanted to make. And George was a better Potioneer, so he often made test batches of those new products with the new ingredients that Fred acquired.

During your time at school, you had been one of the people who had made the mistake of believing that the twins were simply two halves of the same person. You had thought that they were truly identical, inside and out. You lumped them together in your mind so often, thinking that there weren’t any differences between them.

But the more time you spent around them, especially while working at the shop, the more you realized that they were truly, utterly different. They worked together not because they couldn’t be separated or because they naturally came as a pair - but because they had established a friendship and a working relationship that genuinely worked well for them. They balanced each other out with their unique talents, they didn’t just have the same skill set twice over.

In a lot of ways, you admired it.

Even if that strong partnership had caused you to be covered in slime or paint or to be tripped and trapped in a broom closet during your days at Hogwarts far too many times. You admired them much more now that you worked with them, and not against them.

It was seemingly just another random Monday when George took a break from whatever he had been doing and came to find you in the upstairs store room. You were going through a new batch of products and taking inventory of everything before you stocked them out on the floor.

“How’s it going?” George asked, using his height to his advantage to peek over the pile of boxes at you. You were sitting on the floor with one of them open in front of you, counting and sorting a batch of products for their newly improved Skiving Snack Boxes.

“Fine, I guess.” You answered dully, using your quill to jot down a number on your parchment before you forgot it. “Wasn’t Fred supposed to do this last night? Where is he, anyway?”

“Oh, he’s gone on a trip.” George told you, leaning his folded arms on the box in front of him. “He’s visiting Angelina during her week off from Harpies’ training.”

Angelina Johnson, Fred’s girlfriend of a few months, had been recruited for the professional Quidditch team The Holyhead Harpies. A few weeks prior, she had left to go to Berlin, where the team’s prestigious coach resided and they had a training camp set up for the team. Since then, you had overheard Fred complaining to George near constantly about how she wasn’t allowed to leave training to come and visit him and how he almost never got letters from her because she was too busy and too tired to write to him.

You hoped that him getting laid for a week straight would mean that he came back in a better mood. Even if it meant a whole week of you having to pick up the slack and do more work while he was gone.

“And he’s meeting with some potential investors while he’s there.” George added on, casual and conversational. “Apparently he was in communication with someone who has a line of Prank Quills that we might want to buy off them for the shop,”

“I thought you two always made your own products?” You questioned, raising a brow at him.

“So far that has been the case, yes.” George confirmed, obviously proud. “But it never hurts to expand our horizons and see what other mischievous minds have come up with,”

You shrugged. It wasn’t your business to worry about.

“I just wish that I would have been warned that I would be stuck in this dusty, spider-invested hole doing inventory.” You lamented, staring down at yourself in disgust.

You had worn a dress that day, and a pair of rather nice black lace tights along with your usual heels. And now you were sitting on the dusty floor, with your shoes and tights getting disgustingly filthy.

“I would have worn crappier clothes…” You mumbled the last part to yourself, heaving a small sigh as you lightly kicked one of the boxes, needing to get out some of the frustration.

“I thought Fred mentioned this to you?” George posed, confused. “He should have warned you that you might have to pick up a few extra shifts-”

You let out a harsh scoff, cutting off George’s words.

“This might have escaped your attention, George, but Fred doesn’t talk to me unless it’s absolutely necessary.” You pointed out. “Beyond talking about the products, he doesn’t even say ‘hello’ to me when he comes in. I think if the building was on fire, he would ask you to tell me to evacuate.”

George sighed, mentally conceding to your point.

“Yeah, I think Mum got on him about that whole… ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say’, bit.”

You rolled your eyes at this.

You thought back to a time when Mrs. Weasley had come into the shop to bring the twins some food she had made for them, complaining about how they likely weren’t eating properly.

But she had accidentally stumbled upon Fred calling you stupid and useless, accusing you of losing some of his inventory sheets, though the conflict was far from one-sided. You had called him blind and dumb and said that he would never be able to find a hole in his own arse even with a mirror, arguing that he had obviously lost them himself.

But naturally, Molly had only heard the incriminating words coming from him, which quickly put a fury in her. She had put her casserole dishes on the front counter, marched around it, grabbed him by the ear, yanking him harshly toward her - she berated him for calling you such names without shame and threatened to yank his ear right off so that he and George would match.

(She had put on a sweet voice and apologized profusely to you on his behalf before making him grunt apologies through the pain, and then she had invited you to a nice helping of cottage pie - so the day turned out wonderful for you.)

Obviously, since then, he had been terrified to say a cross word to you, lest it somehow get back to his mother.

“Well I understand.” You replied. “He’s never had anything nice to say to me, so he’s just stopped talking to me completely. It makes sense now.”

“Yeah, Fred is…” George trailed off, trying to find words for it.

To this day, George didn’t entirely understand why Fred was so petty and aggravated with you. Sure, the two of you had exchanged plenty of mean words to each other during your days at Hogwarts, but you weren’t even as quick to anger these days as he was. He was usually the one to start it.

“I’m sorry about him.” George landed on those words, deciding that even if he didn’t understand the cause behind Fred’s petty anger toward you, he could apologize for it. “He can be a bit of a stupid git sometimes.”

“‘Can be’ - that’s a funny way to put it.” You replied, nodding, your face breaking into a slight smile.

George smiled. Again, he was pleased to have a conversation with you where you didn’t seem so deeply annoyed with him and didn’t try to insult him. Thus far, you didn’t even seem so eager to get away and end the conversation.

He would even dare to say that you seemed content. That you were enjoying his presence.

Typically, this would be the part of the conversation where he would say something like ‘I should let you get back to work now’, and then he would leave the room and leave you alone, knowing that your patience with him was thin and he shouldn’t wear it out. But this time, he decided to push things just a bit farther. He was trying to make progress with you, after all. (He knew that Fred had been joking, but he wanted to go on a real date with you before the end of the decade.)

“Well, at least we can enjoy this week without him.”

You were intensely curious about his use of the word ‘we’ in that sentence, but another word tripped you up far more.

“Enjoy?” You questioned.

You knew that sometimes Fred and George bickered with each other - running a business together could be stressful, and they didn’t constantly agree about everything. But as far as you knew, they enjoyed spending time together and they were practically inseparable. You didn’t think that George would be relieved to have time without Fred.

You wondered why he seemed so happy not to have Fred around.

“Yeah,” He nodded.

George grinned at you, and you found a pang shooting through your gut. It was an odd kind of delight that you could barely acknowledge igniting inside of you as you realized that he was smiling at you, genuinely smiling at you. There was no indoor swamp or parade of water balloons to be found. You weren’t the butt of a joke in order for that smile to happen. It ignited an instinctive panic within you, but you found yourself really liking his smile.

“We should have dinner together or something.�� He chuckled brightly. “We could finally spend some time together outside of work. Have a discussion that doesn’t involve sales numbers or product displays.”

That small spark of panic flamed into a full-blown raging fire when you realized what he had meant. That the ‘we’ had been the truly important part of the sentence - ‘we can enjoy this week’ - he had meant that he wanted to spend time with you. He wanted to enjoy some time with you.

He wanted to spend time with you outside of work?

He wanted to be alone with you?

He was asking you out on a date.

No, he wasn’t - a voice inside of your brain instantly demanded. There was no way he was asking you out on a date. He didn’t like you, he never thought of you that way. There was no way he thought of you romantically.

He was only trying to be nice because he was a decent human being. He had been raised much differently than you had. This was just his instinct toward common courtesy acting up again - the same one that had caused him to extend the job offer toward you in the first place. He thought you were pathetic and lonely and he likely knew that you spent all of your time outside of work by yourself. He was extending this offer to you due to pity.

Absolutely alarmed with that internal panic, you forced yourself to break the horrible moment of ongoing silence by asking:

“Is that… necessary?” You choked out, knowing that you sounded like an animal caught in a trap, hating how intimidated and unsure your voice was.

“What?” George gaped in return, his face pressing tight with confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Are you ordering me to have dinner with you?” You asked, doing the cowardly thing and doubling down instead of clarifying what you truly meant - asking him if he had intended it romantically, as a date. “Are you asking me as my boss or can I do what I please in my own free time?”

George’s face shifted from bright and hopeful to downtrodden, and seeing this instantly caused something inside of you to ache. It was the first time since unnerving grief of The Battle of Hogwarts that you had felt anything other than stress and tired boredom toward life.

“I’m asking you as a friend.” He quickly clarified, a sharp sourness popping up in his voice, barely covering up the lulling sadness that tightened his throat. “And I thought that you would be pleased to spend your free time with me, but I guess I thought wrong.”

Friend.

For some reason that hurt you more than any insult could have. The strange reality of a date you could have dealt with. Even if he had come in and demanded that he was taking you out on a date - your mind would have eventually adjusted to the pure bizarreness of it.

But him calling you a friend? It hurt and it was too strange, all at once.

You weren’t friendly. You weren’t anybody’s friend.

Perhaps it was because something inside of you screamed that you didn’t deserve the title, but you hated it. Instantly, it caused you to seethe with anger. So as he finally turned and walked away in defeat, you had to open your mouth and deliver the final blow. You pushed yourself up off the floor, barely able to see over the stack of boxes to shout your next words at him.

“We aren’t friends!” You spat out bitterly. “I’m not your friend.”

When he turned back to you, he had the most utterly hurt expression that you had ever seen - his gentle eyes swimming with pain and his mouth drooping into a pathetic frown, his cheeks that were usually full with laughter sagging in a horrible way that didn’t suit him at all.

Though it made you feel sickly to see him like this - in the typical fashion that you were taught, you killed any kindness that had been shown to you. You stepped out from behind the boxes, and continued firing blows as he tried to speak. You had to make sure that this notion of ‘friends’ was truly dead.

“Y/N-”

“No.” You rasped, your throat slightly tight with tears that you were holding back, hating yourself for being like this. “Just because we ended up on the same side, doesn’t mean we have to like each other. Fred doesn’t like me, so why should you?”

George’s expression grew even more painful at this, but he didn’t have anything left to say.

“I’m your employee, that’s it.” You said, firm and finite. “We can be courteous to each other, but we don’t need to have fucking tea parties and hold hands and-”

“I get the point.” George sighed, cutting you off. “I get it. I won’t try to be nice to you anymore.”

With that, he stormed out, not sticking around long enough to see the bitter, angry tears that you released as you moved to get back to your work.

After he rang up a few off-season customers in the shop and then saw them off, his mind began churning and he formed a terrible, brilliant plan. Even without Fred around, he could still make plenty of trouble on his own.

And as George plotted his clever, mischievous little plans to get back at you, he also thought about how you came to be employed at the shop in the first place. He thought back to the whole reason that he believed the two of you were friends at all. A night that he considered two parts luck and one part clever scamming on his part - as most of his life beforehand had been.

…

Three days.

It had been just three days since The Great Harry Potter, The Chosen One had defeated Lord Voldemort once and for all, truly killing the darkest wizard of all time, even leaving behind a corpse to prove it. A corpse that had been burned in the courtyard of Hogwarts to many rousing cheers from the tired crowd of onlookers. It had been three tender days since the battle had ended, leaving everyone tired, battered, bruised, and cautiously optimistic for the future.

It had been three days filled with roaring celebrations for the Dark Lord’s defeat, and those rousing parties were finally starting to die down, leaving a breath of space in the wake of the disaster, time for funerals to bury the dead and mourn the people everyone had loved. And finally leaving mindfulness for the discovery of gruesome things that Voldemort’s followers and people within the Ministry were trying their best to cover up. Many people who had ended up on the wrong side were fleeing the country, trying not to be apprehended for their crimes.

George had been awake for days straight, setting up some extra spells to protect the shop from looting as Diagon Alley descended into chaos with so many celebratory parties having broken out. With Fred still in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing due to the injury he had sustained during the Battle, taking the time he needed to recover, George was on his own to make sure that Fred still had a shop to come home to. He had to make sure that everything they had worked so hard for wasn’t ruined in just a few short days. As happy as he was that Voldemort had been defeated, he was glad that all the revelry seemed to be dying down now.

Though he was bone-tired and exhausted, as he locked up the shop, he chose not to go back to the apartment - vacant of Fred and far too lonely. And he couldn’t see himself going to the Burrow either, where Mum was likely cooking a feast to over-feed everyone and fussing over injuries. (He didn’t need his head wound cleaned until it was sore and he was feeling a bit too sickly to eat.)

He couldn’t lay down and go to sleep, because every time he closed his eyes, all he could think about was the image of Fred, his head bloody with a large cut across his forehead from where you had flung him into a wall, to save his life from tons of falling debris. But still, the sight of his limp, unconscious body on the floor as he grew more pale, unable to woken up no matter how much George shook him and called his name - it was a frightening one that shook his soul at the time.

George had only been able to breathe again once he received the news from Madame Pomfrey that Fred was going to be okay. He would just be unconscious for a few days while the wound healed and the swelling in his head went down.

So, like many other people on this day, whether it was for celebration or mourning or just to dull the pain, George wanted to get drunk. He was not surprised when he found The Leaky Cauldron packed, and he had to force his way in, using his height to his advantage to elbow his way up to the bar in an attempt to place his order. But before he could actually get the barmaid’s attention, any thought about drinking flew from his mind when he spotted you.

You were leaning against the end of the bar, propped up with your face in the palm of your hand, your elbow pressed against the bartop - you looked as though the filthy, unpolished wood of the bar was the only thing supporting your entire system at the moment.

Your dark eye make-up was smeared, and you were sitting on a long dark trench coat that you had draped over the barstool, your blouse was partially unbuttoned, revealing the dark, lacy bra that you had on underneath. Your dark stockings were torn in some places, beginning to turn into runs up your whole leg, your skirt riding up to a short length that he knew you would have deemed far too inappropriate and yanked down if you had been paying attention at all, one of your heels having fallen off to the floor.

You were a drunken mess, that much was immediately obvious. As he shoved past more people and got closer to you, he could smell the scotch practically seeping out of your pores.

George had to wonder how long you had been camping on that barstool, drinking away your sorrows. He wondered which loved one you were mourning - who had died that was close to you in order for you to need so much booze to drown the feelings out. He immediately felt an instinct flare up to care for you, and he knew that he wouldn’t be having his drink, and he wouldn’t be leaving the bar without you. Especially not when you were in this state.

“Y/N.” George gently called your name as he came to stand at your side, still towering over you as you sat on the tall barstool.

Instinctively, he put a hand on your back, feeling the need to protect you from the bustling crowd, suddenly conscious of how many men were in the bar and how vulnerable you were. He felt intensely lucky that he was the one to find you, and not some other foul git with worse things on his mind.

Finally, after a long, delayed moment, you turned your head in response to him calling your name. Your eyes were terribly slowed by how much alcohol was in your system, and you moved in slow motion as your gaze wandered from the wall in front of you over toward him, seeming entirely surprised to find that the warm hand on your back was attached to him.

“Weasley.” You said quietly, and then let out a small hiccup. “George. George Weasley. You’re the tall one.”

“Yes.” George responded.

He knew that with the bandage wrapped around his head, still supporting his very visible ear injury, (or rather, the random hole in the side of his head where his ear used to be) he was much more easily discernible from Fred. But he was still glad that you knew who he was.

“How much have you had to drink?” He knew that it was likely a stupid question, but still, he felt the need to ask it.

“How much have you had t-to drink?” You countered, slurring, scowling harshly at him.

As much as he would like to pull up a stool beside yours and follow you into stupid levels of drunkenness, he knew that he had to be the responsible one. Stupid Gryffindor nobility. And he owed you, because you had saved Fred’s life just a few days ago. He would owe you for that for a long time. So it was time to start paying you back - even if getting you into a warm bed and making sure that you didn’t drown in your own vomit was small compared to saving someone’s life, it would still be a start.

“Come on,” George insisted, wrestling your coat out from underneath you and trying to get you into it.

Of course, you immediately started fighting him like a cranky drunk toddler as he moved to put your arm into the sleeve.

“No!” You shouted at him, beginning to push him away, causing a few pairs of eyes in the pub to look over. “I am gonna keep drinking! B-because getting drunk is the thing to do. Drinking is the thing. It’s all that there is.”

“Why?” George countered, pausing with your arm awkwardly halfway into your sleeve.

You gave a long, lazy blink up at him. He thought that perhaps if you could vent your sadness to him, then you would be less inclined to drink, and you wouldn’t fight him off so that he could take you home to rest.

Your face broke into a smile - not one of actual happiness, but a twisted one that said your mind was truly breaking under the weight of what had upset you. And then, you began laughing. A broken, harsh laugh that pierced right through George as your scotch-soaked breath puffed across his face.

“I - I have nothing!” You cried out, sounding utterly mad. “I have no prospects, no family, no job! No future! Nothing!”

So that’s what was upsetting you so much. The end of the war had reminded you that you and your ‘family’ had ended up on two very different sides. And the entire battle against Voldemort had disrupted your education and the Potioneer training that you had wanted to do after Hogwarts, so you weren’t sure what you wanted to do with your life now.

It was all a very crappy situation to end up in. While George had the shop to go back to, and a very loving family to fall back on for support (his mother’s love so smothering that sometimes he dared to complain about it) - you didn’t have anything. A pang of guilt throbbed inside of him as he watched your face become distant and haunted, and even more terrible words came drifting from your drunken lips.

“He even took Pixie.” You sniffled quietly, picking up the cup in front of you and finishing the last of your drink. “The bastard took everything… and he just had to - fuck. I can’t believe he killed Pixie.”

“Who’s Pixie?” George wondered quietly, hating the depth of the mourning in your voice.

He had to guess that the ‘he’ you were referring to was your father. It didn’t surprise him that he had killed someone dear to you, and that was one of the reasons you were in the bar, trying to drink yourself into unconsciousness. George wondered if Pixie was a pet of yours or something along those lines - it would be a bit of a strange name for a person. But if it was a person, he would report the murder so that your father would pay for the crime when they caught him.

“She - she was my House Elf.” You told him with another drunken stutter.

Oh.

George had never been around House Elves much in his life. He knew that it was something often linked to Pureblood culture, and his parents had never liked the idea of having one around. They were much more into ‘the value of hard work’ and ‘getting stuck in’, and they had always taught the Weasley children from a young age that if you want something, you need to do it for yourself. It was likely why Fred and George had worked so hard to get the shop - making the products from scratch, getting their seed money by taking bets, filling out all the paperwork to get the lease in Diagon Alley. Even if it wasn’t exactly what their parents had envisioned for them, they had worked hard for it.

George’s experience with House Elves was very minimal. Other than the few times he and Fred had ducked into the Hogwarts’ kitchens to hide out from a professor after a particularly epic prank, only to have dozens of beady eyes staring at them; or hearing Harry speak of Dobby as a good friend; or the few months the Weasleys had stayed at Grimmauld Place and he had tried his best to avoid Kreacher and his ramblings about ‘Blood Traitors’ - he wasn’t really sure what having a House Elf was even like.

So he simply sat there and listened as you spoke about Pixie, your heart clearly aching for your lost beloved Elf.

“She was m-more of a mother to me than… well my mother was dead. She took care of me more than my father did, honestly. She did everything for me. It was her job, but - it felt like family.” You choked on these words, clearly most mournful when thinking of this. “She used to wake me up, and cook for me, and do the little buttons on my jumpers. And she used to tell me ‘don’t frown, girlie, because you never know who could be falling in love with your smile’. And I know it’s stupid, but I loved her. And I was - I was gonna take her with me. I - I had no clue where I was gonna go, but I was gonna take her with me.”

George’s insides ached as the undistilled sadness came through your voice, and he could do little more than to listen as you continued on. He knew that it was important for you to feel heard when you were at your weakest.

“I went home. I wasn’t planning on staying, I just… he ruined everything.” You huffed, your words touched with anger even though grief was the prominent emotion. “He had burned all the pictures of my mother… and there was this jewelry box that she had given me that belonged to her grandmother. And he had smashed it. He just wants me to suffer. He’s such a bastard.”

You looked up at George then, your eyes shining with tears, and his throat was throttled by his own unshed tears.

“He is.” George easily confirmed. Unsure what else to do, he tried once again to get you out of the bar. “Come on, love. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up, and we can get you some water-”

He moved onto trying to care for you, knowing that he couldn’t take away your pain. He could only try to ease it - he could only be there for you now to make sure that you didn’t make a terrible mess of yourself. He was trying to make sure that you had a safe place to land.

“I don’t even have a reputation.” You whispered this quieter, pulling George closer by the front of his shirt to say it, as though it were a fantastic secret. “That used to be all I could think about - my reputation. I used to spend every day thinking of what other people thought of me… I mean now I know what everyone thinks of me!”

Much to George’s alarm, you back shouting, turning to stare at everyone else in the pub as you intentionally attracted their attention.

“They all think I was part of it! They all think I’m one of them!” You hissed out, your voice struggling to slither out of your heavy, drunken lips, not sounding nearly as intimidating as you likely wanted it to while you glared at the crowd of on-lookers. “But look! Look, everyone!”

George had no idea why, and then suddenly, you ripped your arm out of your jacket once again, and you began waving both your arms frantically, showing off your bare arms to everyone who continued to stare.

“Look, everyone! No Marks! I am not the person you think I am!”

Oh.

You were desperate to prove that you hadn’t been fighting on the wrong side.

“Just because my father is a self-righteous arseh-”

“Love, calm down.” George told you, gently bringing your arms back down, knowing that you would regret making a fool of yourself later.

You let out a sputtering laugh in his direction.

“Good idea!” You gasped, and then waved toward the barmaid. “I’ll have another-”

“No, she’s cut off.” George said sharply, looking at the barmaid rather than trying to tell you.

George then went back to trying to dress you, squatting down and forcing your shoe on, which wasn’t too difficult. When he came back up and kept trying to wrestle you into your coat, he found the barmaid waving a piece of parchment in his face.

“She hasn’t paid her tab.” She said gruffly.

By the look of the amount, you had been there all night.

“Send it up to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.” George said, shoving the paper back across the bar.

“Fine.” The woman huffed. “But I didn’t know that a couple of good boys like you associated with Death Eaters-”

“She’s not a Death Eater.” George spat back. “She saved my brother’s life a few days ago. So you should check your facts before someone in a worse mood hears you spouting that shit,” He added on, giving a thinly veiled warning.

George finally got you into the coat, and he kept an arm tight around your shoulders as he steered you through the crowd and out of the bar. Walking you down the cobblestone street, keeping you from tripping over yourself while you were wearing those bloody heels was certainly interesting. After a journey that felt too long, he finally got you through the shop and upstairs to the apartment above it.

He and Fred still had a few boxes left there (more for storage purposes than anything else), and he would have to find something to make up the bed with, but it was better than nothing. Definitely better than trying to Apparate with you in this condition.

He sat you down on the couch that they had left behind, and you sank into the soft furniture, quickly kicking off your irritating shoes as you relaxed back and closed your eyes. George went to the kitchen and got you a glass and filled it with water, bringing it over to you, knowing that something other than liquor would do you some good.

You took it from him without a fight, and began gulping it down, finishing almost the entire thing as he smiled at you. He was glad to be taking care of you right now. Not only did it occupy his mind, but he was thankful for the company. Unlike what most people thought, you were easy to get along with.

As you took a breath from the water, he moved toward the boxes, looking for something to make up the bed with. You gave him a curious look.

“Is someone moving?” You slurred out, your words still weighed down by drunkenness.

You would definitely need to sleep it off.

“Yeah.” He answered. “Fred and I have already moved. We used to live here. But we got a better place outside of London.”

“Oh.” You replied, giving another hiccup. “T-too bad. This place is kind of cozy.”

He was surprised that someone like you - someone who came from riches and grew up with the ‘finer things in life’ didn’t make a comment about the apartment being small and cramped. But he supposed that you weren’t a snob like Malfoy, after all.

“It’s nice that it’s empty. It means that nobody will care that I’m putting you up here for the night.” He told you.

“What?” You gaped in return, seeming confused by his words.

“You’re not Apparating while drunk.” He told you. “So you’re staying here.”

There was a moment of comfortable silence, and then you surprised George when you spoke up again.

“George?”

When he turned around to face you, you were looking at him with that intense sadness in your eyes again, and it truly struck through his gut. He hated that he felt so utterly helpless. He hated that he couldn’t take your pain away.

“What is it, love?” He asked, wondering what was on your mind now.

“Do - do you think I’m a bad person?” You asked, your voice terribly pitiful and small.

Just like the image of Fred bloody and unconscious, this punched a hole right through George’s chest.

“What? No. Of course not.” George itched with the urge to reach out and sweep you into a hug, but he feared that this would make you uncomfortable. So he squeezed his hands at his sides and eventually crossed his arms over his chest as he spoke again. “You’re so far from being a bad person. You fought alongside us. You saved Fred. You’ve always been good.”

“Not always.” You huffed quietly.

“Well you’re certainly no Death Eater.”

George declared, turning back and grabbing a quilt that his mother had made from one of the boxes and bringing it into the naked mattress that was still stacked on the twin frame in the bedroom. (When the shop first started, the twins had been so busy that they used to take shifts sleeping, and only needed one single bed between the two of them, so it was all the apartment had.)

By the time he had made up the bed to be somewhat comfortable, he came back out to discover that you had fallen asleep on the couch. So he decided not to risk waking you up by levitating you, and instead he very gently lifted your feet up to join the rest of your body, tucked a small throw pillow under your head, and covered you up with the quilt.

While he stood there, admiring how peaceful you looked in your sleep, he did have to use the deepest form of self restraint to keep himself from laying a small kiss on your forehead. He couldn’t let himself give in to that urge because that wasn’t the nature of your relationship. No - he just left you a note telling you to meet him downstairs in his office when you woke up.

…

When you found George in his office the next day, if you had any signs of a hangover, you certainly didn’t show them. You were carrying yourself very well - you had rubbed off your smudged make-up, tidied up your hair, straightened out your clothes, and even taken off (and presumably thrown away) your ruined stockings, giving him a rare glimpse of your bare legs.

However, as you stared him down after knocking on the open door, he was surprised to see such a deep scowl on your face. He thought that the two of you had made progress the night before and that you would be… softer toward him. Especially after opening up to him so much.

“Y/N-” He greeted you warmly.

“Look, Weasley, I’m really sorry about last night. Whatever happened-” You began speaking vaguely, and he cut you off, immediately curious of something.

“How much of it do you remember?” He asked.

He would be mildly devastated if you didn’t remember the night before - the tender emotions of it, the way you had opened up to him. But he knew that you had certainly been drunk enough to cause memory problems, and that was likely the only reason you had opened up to him so much. He definitely wouldn’t hold it against you in the long run.

“Excuse me?” You gaped, seeming almost insulted by the question.

“How much of last night do you even remember?” He prodded, repeating the question. “Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”

You let out a huff, your whole body tense. And then, deflating like a balloon, your posture slumped for the first time in all the years he had known you, and you finally let your guard down in front of him for the first time while sober.

“No.” You admitted hesitantly. “Go ahead, start laughing.”

You were on the verge of tears, and George hated that you thought he might make fun of some of your most vulnerable moments.

“I don’t think people being upset is very funny.” He told you honestly. “People freaking out because they’re covered in muck or because something jumped out at them? Yes, that’s funny. Genuine upset - that’s not funny.”

“Thank you for the clarification.” You said, deadpan coming into your voice as you were unsure how to proceed.

You moved to leave, and George’s next words stopped you.

“Last night, you were complaining because you said that you have no prospects.” He told you. “Nothing planned for your future.”

You froze up, not yet turning around - absolutely hating the vulnerability you had disclosed to him.

“Fred is gonna be in the hospital for a while, as you know. And I’m gonna need some help around the shop while he’s gone. We’re probably gonna help around here after that anyway. We’ve been getting busier and busier.” George continued on.

You slowly swung around, heart pounding in your chest as you processed his words.

“I know it’s probably not glamorous - it’s gonna be a lot of hard work and some of the products can be tricky-”

“Are you offering me a job?” You asked, trying to get clarity on the situation.

“Yes.” George nodded. “It’s fifty Galleons a day, flat rate, no commissions. Plus, if you want, the flat above the shop is vacant. And it’s furnished.”

“What would the rent be?” You asked, thinking that there was a catch.

George shrugged. “It comes with the position. But you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to.”

He remembered what you had said about going ‘home’ but not planning to stay there - you said that you had no clue where you planned to go, and he wanted to help you out with that. He truly wanted to be your soft spot to land.

He knew that you were likely used to living in some fancy mansion, and the flat above the shop was small and shabby in comparison - but you had called it cozy. You liked it. Hopefully you would consider it a nice place to live, especially in the wake of the war that had just taken place.

“And you want me to take the job? You want me around here? In your shop? Every day?” You questioned, motioning toward yourself.

“I can think of nobody better qualified for the job.” George grinned at you.

You let out a sigh. “Okay. I - I guess you have yourself a new employee, then.”

George extended out a hand to signify that it was a done deal, and out of ingrained social queues, you took it and sealed the verbal agreement with a handshake.

That was how you came to be employed at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.

…

That had been over three years ago.

You had truly believed that the whole thing would be temporary. And you found more and more that as the days went on, you didn’t mind working at the shop or living in the small apartment above it.

You found that more and more - you were getting used to it. And you were even enjoying this quiet life.

…

You were dreading coming in after having that harsh conversation with George. Immediately after it happened, you regretted so boldly telling him that you weren’t his friend instead of simply taking him up on his offer. But it had been done, and you couldn’t simply go back and change your actions now.

When you came into the shop that morning, you didn’t find any trace of George. Luckily, there was a set of internal stairs that led from your apartment directly into the shop, so you didn’t have to worry about needing a key for the front door in order to be let in.

You wouldn’t be surprised if George was making you open by yourself due to his new policy about no longer being ‘nice’ to you, so you set about performing the opening duties all on your own. You swept the floor, faced the shelves, opened the curtains and made sure all the products in the display windows were working how they should be. It was lonely. You found yourself missing his usual quips about ‘barely having his eyes open’ and how he was surprised that you managed to look so awake and put together so early.

But you had done this to yourself. So you had to accept it. When you were about to open the cash register and make sure that you had the correct amount of change to start the day, you noticed a small box sitting on the counter. A box with a label on it that signified it was from one of the nearby pastry shops in the Muggle part of London.

It was a place that George ventured often to get baked goods, and he had brought you back pastries from there before. You eyed the box suspiciously. It was large enough to fit quite a few items, and with Fred not around, you had to assume that George had left the box on the counter, intending to share whatever he had brought back with you. He was revoking his promise awfully quickly, but you didn’t entirely mind.

You were glad to forget about the previous day’s conversation and simply go back to the quiet, pleasant dynamic that the two of you had established. He harassed you with his niceties and you grew increasingly annoyed by it until he got the hint and left. It was simple, but it worked.

You moved toward the box and lifted the lid, interested to see if he had picked up any of the chocolate croissants this time -

“Fucking hell!”

You let out a harsh scream when something jumped out of the box at you as soon as you opened the lid - a blur of green, a pair of glowing eyes and a forked tongue that leapt toward you. Instinctively, you jumped back and ended up with one of your high heels wedged between the floorboards (in a strangely large gap that you constantly whined at the twins to get fixed). This caused your entire foot to get stuck, which made you trip over yourself and fall into the display of Extendable Ear boxes that was set up behind the counter.

You let out another undignified scream as you felt yourself falling, and you frantically looked around for whatever it was that had come out of the box, soon spotting the long, lanky body of the snake on the floor at your feet. You squirmed and screamed again, literally wiggling out of your own still-stuck shoe in order to escape it, frantically tripping over the downed boxes trying to get farther away.

Your fright quickly turned to fury when you heard laughter.

Laughter that was all too familiar to you. Except, it wasn’t echoed by a secondary voice that sounded like a pair to the first. It was entirely solo this time.

You looked for the source of the laughter, craning your neck upward toward the voice. Soon you saw George descending from the second floor balcony that overlooked the main floor of the store, his face split with a wide grin as the sounds died off into a dull chuckle. You glared at him the entire time. You began to grind your teeth out of pure fury while he raised his hands and slowly began to clap.

“My, my, that was magnificent.” He announced loudly, congratulating himself. “You dream, and you hope, but you never think it’s gonna be so satisfying.”

“Satisfying?” You parroted back, the word coming out as an infuriated hiss. “You put a live snake in a pastry box to scare me and you-”

“Live snake?” George quickly cut you off. “Seriously, do you think I’m that reckless?”

He walked over to the area behind the counter, and you felt truly stupid when he picked up a very obviously rubber toy snake from beside your now empty shoe. He turned around and presented it to you with a wide, satisfied smirk - one that would have looked far more fitting on Fred.

“It’s charmed.” He announced proudly. “Though I am flattered that you consider my work so realistic. But I suppose I had to step up my game after you critiqued my Serpent Morph-O-Mask to hell and back.”

“Shut up.” You huffed at him, limping over with your uneven, one-heeled walk, going to retrieve your shoe. You hoped to put it back on and make up some excuse about something else that you had to do, and hopefully you would be able to avoid him for the rest of the day.

“And you know, this wouldn’t have happened if you simply wouldn’t have assumed that anything in this box was for you.” George pointed out, motioning to the still open box of pastries on the counter, which you now noticed had a few very delicious looking croissants in it. The chocolate ones that he knew you liked. “You could have just asked me-”

“So then I would have gotten scared by a fake snake after I asked you nicely for a pastry?” You fired back sarcastically, leaning down grabbing a hold of your shoe.

You were soon disappointed to find that the heel was firmly wedged into the gap, and you yanking on it once, twice, did nothing to free it. You stood up and moved to grab your wand from your apron, but by then, George had knelt down and had a hand on it. He used a burly arm to pull it free with a grunt in one single motion - a show of strength that you would never admit had impressed you.

“I don’t think you’ll ever find out what happens when you ask for things nicely, because you never do.” George told you, holding out your shoe for you as he continued to kneel, implying that he would slide it onto your foot for you. “Now, come on Cinderella.”

His words confused you, but you stepped forward anyway, feeling exceedingly awkward about it. Especially with how unexpectedly intimate it felt to have him put a warm hand on your calf and guide you into the shoe, shoving it snugly onto your foot with his other hand.

“What the hell is Cinderella?” You asked him quietly as you pulled your foot back, now with your shoe securely on it.

“Oh, it’s some Muggle story that Hermione made Ron read. He was telling us about it-” He explained as he stood to his full height. “Some woman loses her shoe, and this prince-” He cut himself off abruptly. “Some ladies cut their toes off, and there’s mice. It sounds interesting, I guess.”

You almost wanted to ask him to further explain it, mostly out of bored curiosity. But before you could, he changed the subject entirely.

“Clean this up,” He told you, gesturing to the many boxes you had knocked over in your haste to escape the joke snake. “And then go sweep upstairs. Last night I had a mishap with some of the Instant Peruvian Darkness Powder on my way out.” He added on, speaking to you curtly like a boss typically would.

He then took one of the croissants and closed the box before he promptly left to go open the shop’s front door for the day.

You looked at the pile of boxes now scattered across the floor and heaved out a sigh.

This was a horrible change of pace. Any time that the twins had pranked you in the past, they had always been the ones who had been forced to clean up afterwards. But you definitely weren’t at school anymore. They weren’t going to be forced to scrub cauldrons for detention if they did something to you.

It was going to be a very long day.

…

With Fred gone, it turned out to be a grossly long week.

Without his brother there, George was bored or something, and he turned to bothering you for entertainment. Which meant that his childish pranks only continued and grew worse as the week went on.

The next day he brought you a cup of tea, seemingly as a peace offering to apologize because you had been so upset about the (fake) snake. You accepted it without thinking anything of it, taking a small break in between stocking shelves and sweeping the floor to drink it.

Unknowingly, for the rest of the day, you walked around with large, bright blue feathers growing out of your head where your eyebrows were supposed to be.

Customers gawked at you and children pointed and laughed, which you thought was run of the mill for a joke shop. You forced yourself to assume that they were enthusiastic about the products around you - not that they were laughing at you. You only thought to duck into a bathroom and check to see what was wrong after you spoke to George about a new product line and it was clear that he could barely contain his laughter through the whole conversation. That was around late afternoon. And when you finally saw what he had done to you, then you stormed upstairs, boiling angry, absolutely fuming at George for embarrassing you like that.

Not wanting to start firing off spells so close to your face, you did the only thing that you could think to do - you trimmed the feathers down with a pair of scissors and ended up shaving your eyebrows cleanly, completely off, when you saw that there was still traces of the bright blue growing out of your roots. You ended up having to draw them back on with an eyeliner pencil, and by the time you returned, George scolded you for taking ‘such a long break’ and made you sweep cobwebs out of one of the store rooms as a punishment.

Later that night, after consulting an article in Wonder Witch Magazine about overplucking one’s brows, you mixed up and applied the slightest dab of hair tonic to the area and managed to grow them back to the way they were, but you were still fuming angry with George.

The rest of the week went like that. He disrupted your usual routine with childish pranks, making you angrier and angrier. Glitter bombs disguised in a package of Extendable Ears that you had to unpack, making frog sounds go off whenever you were talking to customers to disrupt you, and then escalating to releasing live frogs into the store to scare you and making you run around to catch them before they ruined the merchandise.

Toward the end of the week, after a hard day of living in paranoia of every move he made, trying to dodge his childish antics, you went upstairs and collapsed onto your bed. You were utterly exhausted, and you couldn’t help but to think about a time when he had been kinder to you. You truly thought that without Fred around, George was a lot less lethal when it came to this ‘mischief for no good reason’ stuff.

At least, that’s what your time at Hogwarts had led you to believe.

…

Umbridge was one of the worst things to ever happen to Hogwarts.

You had seen far too many awful, unqualified professors in your time - and you could officially say that the man who turned out to secretly be a Death Eater was a better teacher than her.

But even as you sat in a lonely, secluded, cold corridor after a long, late night detention with her - even as you clutched your bloody hand, she wasn’t the main person occupying your mind. She wasn’t the reason you were quietly sobbing to yourself while you clutched your hand to your chest, for once, not caring if you got your pristine uniform stained with your own blood.

Being in detention with her had gotten you thinking about everything in your life. Your father, your blood status, everything that had led up to this point. And as you had written those hundreds of lines with her terrible quill, somehow scrawling in your own blood, you kept thinking about the last DA meeting that you had been to. A meeting where Harry had been teaching everyone The Patronus Charm, and you hadn’t even attempted it.

Why not?

Because you couldn’t come up with a single strong happy memory to focus on while casting the spell. And you were far too embarrassed to admit to anyone in the room, especially Harry. And the more you racked your brain, trying to come up with a memory that you believed could help you pull off the spell, the more you came up with: your father screaming at you, telling you that you weren’t good enough, casually tossing discontent toward you, telling you that you were stupid and emotionally immature when you were only a child.

Your only friends being House Elves - who were nice to you, but forced to be there in order to care for you. You thought of lonely days at Hogwarts where others stared at you and whispered about your past, where the few attempts you made at friendship during your early days of school were met with children fleeing from you because they believed the rumors about your family and how ‘evil’ you must have been because of them.

You thought of how embarrassing it would be to not be able to perform the spell in front of everyone at DA. How they would all know that you were a fraud. And the more you thought about how pathetic your life was and how embarrassing the next meeting would be, the more upset you became.

So you wept.

Little did you know, someone had stumbled upon you and was listening to your cries.

Umbridge had come up with the horrifying but clever strategy of separating Fred and George for their detentions. On this night, while Fred was scrubbing cauldrons for Professor Snape while George had just finished shining the floor in the Defense Against The Dark Arts Classroom. On his way back to the Gryffindor common room, he was more than surprised when the sound of weeping in a corridor led him to you.

At first he was terrified to approach - terrified that acknowledging you crying would get him on the wrong end of a hex. But as he lingered near the end of the secluded corridor, eventually, you looked up and spotted him on your own.

“Oh great.” You sighed heavily, sounding entirely bothered by his presence.

“I'm unarmed.” He said, putting up both his hands in surrender, showing you that he held no prank products and genuinely meant no harm.

You hastily wiped your tears, an instinct to hide your vulnerability; though you knew there was no way that he hadn’t seen you crying. You were hoping naively that he would simply let the subject pass in silence - and he might have, until he spotted something on the back of your hand. A set of red welts that were bleeding freely that signified that you had just been freed from a detention with Umbridge yourself.

“What were you in for?” George asked, gesturing to your hand, cautious not to get close enough to touch it, not wanting to unintentionally graze against the open wounds and hurt you.

“Oh.” You sighed, glancing down at it, having been so caught up in your upsetting thoughts that you had almost forgotten about the smarting of your hand. “I must not tell lies.” You said, reciting the line now engraved into your hand that was illegible past the blood.

You realized that you couldn’t tell him the truth - ironically, completely ignoring the directive that Umbridge had been trying so hard to drill into your head. So you quickly made up a lie about the reason you had been put into detention in the first place.

“The awful old cunt was convinced that I was lying to her when I said I have no clue what you and Fred are planning next.”

In actuality, she had called you in for ‘questioning’, and grown increasingly angry when you refused to drink the tea she offered you. Veritaserum was colourless, tasteless, and odorless, but because of your true talent for potions, you immediately recognized the amber tinted bottle on her desk that clearly contained it. Knowing that the stuff couldn’t be stored with any chance of light getting at it and tainting, so it had to be kept in tinted glass, you pushed the tea cup away and she immediately gave herself up with her petty reaction.

She questioned you about what kind of ‘activities’ you got up to outside of class, only to receive boring, dead-pan answers from you about studying and sleeping, and then she moved on to asking you about why you were spending increasing amounts of time with ‘the Weasleys’, and Granger and Potter. When you went silent, she not-so-subtly threatened to Owl your father and tell him about ‘the kind of company that you were keeping, and you couldn’t help it - you grabbed a quill off her desk and slapped it down in front of her, daring her to do it.

Which only ended with you writing lines for her. It meant that you had silently won that round. You guessed that she was actually slightly afraid of your father - or afraid of the fact that you didn’t seem all too scared of him. Not anymore.

But you couldn’t possibly spill all of this to George now. Just because you worked on practicing spells with the DA members didn’t mean that George or any of the others cared about your personal gossip.

Despite what Umbridge believed, it was just easier to make up a lie.

“I don’t even know what Fred and I are planning next.” George replied honestly, light laughter on his lips. “We just use a mixture of improvisation and our knack for causing mischief.”

“Exactly.” You said.

“You know, I have a healing cream that works pretty well to prevent scars.” He said, reaching his hand out to show you his, where the once deep indent of ‘I shall not talk back’ was now barely visible. “Fred and I had to come up with something good after testing the early versions of our products on ourselves started to go awry.”

You never would have guessed that they actually tested those awful products on themselves, but you had to silently admire them for being willing to do it.

“Oh, um, thanks but - it’s not that big of a deal.” You said. “I’ll be fine.”

Truly, the physical pain was not the thing bothering you the most.

You moved to walk away, and George surprised himself when he dared to speak up again, shouting down the hallway after you.

“Then why were you crying?” He asked.

You turned back around, startled into facing him again. You hated that he had asked the one question you hoped he would avoid.

You heaved a terrible sigh, fidgeting with the end of your skirt as you mulled in the silence, wondering if you should tell him the truth or not. He shoved his hands in his pockets and took the few steps toward you again, closing the gap because you weren’t eager to run away.

“I -” You choked on a breath, and George waited patiently for you to speak.

You hated to be vulnerable, but the darkness and the late night made it too easy. The fact that he was alone instead of being bracketed by Fred staring you down with his hyper critical eyes made it too easy. George - sweet George - and his damn soft eyes and his expression full of nurturing rather than judgement. He made it too easy.

He made it all feel so safe.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about the stupid Patronus thing from DA, okay?” You admitted hesitantly, rushing to get the words out, bracing yourself for the laughter you felt was inevitably after he heard the words.

This confused George slightly.

During the last DA meeting, Harry had been teaching everyone how to produce a Patronus Charm - something that was difficult, but incredibly useful against dark creatures like Dementors. Even George himself hadn't been able to produce a fully corporeal Patronus, only a shield version, which Harry still congratulated him for being able to do. George had noticed you standing back to watch everyone else, pacing around the room with your wand grasped in your hand tightly, held down by your side, and he overheard something about you ‘taking time to think’ when Harry asked you if you needed help.

He knew that it was a very difficult spell and upon leaving the meeting, he hadn’t faulted you when he hadn’t seen you cast one.

“What about it?” He asked, confused.

“I wasn’t able to do it.” You said, clearly embarrassed.

George shrugged, letting off a nervous laugh.

“It’s a really hard spell.” He said. “I can’t conjure a full Patronus myself. Not yet. That’s the point of DA - to practice. And-”

“No.” You heaved, the word so heavy on your breath. “That’s not what I meant.”

Pure tragedy overtook your features, and George’s heart ached for you as he waited for you to finally speak the words.

“I - ugh.” You sighed, scuffing your heeled shoe harshly against the stone floor, unable to look at him as you said it. “I couldn’t even try. Because I couldn’t think of a happy memory…”

You trailed off the last words very quietly, and if George hadn’t been straining his ears to listen, he wouldn’t have actually known what you said.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

George was struck with the horrible realization that not everyone’s life had been like his. He had always known that the two of you were very different, but… he had never thought about it like this.

On that day in DA, he had struggled to begin because he had too many happy memories to choose from, and Harry theorized that he wasn’t concentrating hard enough on just one. He had memories of childhood birthday celebrations, family dinners, years at Hogwarts with friends, playing pranks with Fred, the Quidditch World Cup - all those among many memories that made him intensely happy. His life was so joyful.

Finally, George landed on a particularly intense memory of when Bill had gifted him his first broom. It wasn’t brand new, but Bill had spent one of his first paychecks post-Hogwarts on two secondhand refurbished brooms for him and Fred on their birthday so that they could stop using the absolutely crap ones from the Hogwarts storage shed for their practices. That was the year they had both made Beater for the first time. Flying on that broom had felt like the most perfect, joyous freedom that George ever could have tasted. Especially knowing that his brother had gifted it to him.

“It’s not like my life is terrible.” You quickly rushed to assure George. “But it’s all just - a blur. My father isn’t some vessel of affection. And I don’t remember much of my mother. And Hogwarts-”

You quickly cut yourself off, sucking in a sharp breath as you held back more tears.

Oh hell. What had Hogwarts been like for you? Fred and George tormenting you with pranks over some stupid house rivalry? Making your life more difficult for no reason?

Did you even have any good friends?

George never remembered seeing you around with anyone. At least, not with friends like he had.

You always walked the halls alone, you always ate alone. But he thought that was how you preferred to spend your time. He always thought before this that you were simply snobbish and you never thought anybody else was good enough to be in your company. But more and more these days, he was realizing that fact simply wasn’t the case. (He supposed that Slytherins weren’t the easiest to make friends with, and Slytherins didn’t have much luck making friends outside of their house, especially not when their father was a known Death Eater.)

Silently vowing to become your good friend from then on, George moved on to a more important matter first - helping you cast a Patronus Charm.

“What do you remember about your mother?” He asked.

“What?” You gaped, confused.

“Your mother - do you have any happy memories of her?” He asked.

You stirred in quiet thought for a moment. You hated where this was going, but with his gentle eyes still giving you that terrible sense of safety, you found yourself opening up to him once again.

“I don’t remember much of her.” You told him quietly. “She died when I was really young - when I was only four. My father always talks about her like she was some horrid bitch. He never paints a kind picture of her, and I often wonder if I’m misremembering her because I was so young.”

“You should disregard anything your father says as a general rule.” George told you, entirely confident in his own words as he always was.

This was the first time that you considered, beyond his beliefs about ‘Mudbloods’ and your family’s ‘natural superiority’, that your father might have been wrong when he spoke about you. Before you could dwell on that thought, however, George spoke up again.

“What do you remember?” He asked, stressing the word to put meaning on your own personal experiences, not the weight of someone else’s.

He genuinely valued your opinion for once. It felt strange that someone did.

“She was kind.” You said quietly, still reserved. “She smelled wonderful - like rising bread dough and fresh flowers. She was always smiling. She-”

You cut yourself off, growing tearful. It had been a long time since you had allowed yourself to remember.

“Keep going.” George encouraged you. “It's okay. You should hold onto these things.”

The soft rumble of his voice - so much gentler than usual - made the words feel true. You tried to let yourself fall into the memories. Far off in your mind, you ran into your mother’s embrace.

“She used to give me these little square sweets after every meal.” You said, making the small shape with your fingers as the memory truly sank in. “Different chocolates filled with things - mint and nougat and strawberry. She said that you should always have something sweet after every meal. And I would bite them in half and guess the flavour, and then I would give the other half to her and kiss her on the cheek.”

It was something you hadn’t thought about in so long, and though it was tender, it did bring you joy.

“Good.” George whispered, terrified to break your concentration on the memory. “Hold onto that.”

He took his wand from his pocket, not even thinking about the fact that you casting the charm with his wand might not be as successful, if successful at all. He was simply too eager to try it out. He stepped behind you and you felt odd with the sudden closeness, wanting to run from the contact as he crowded up tight to your back and grabbed your wand arm, placing the wand in it.

“Come on, you can do it-”

“George, no-”

“Just try.” He insisted, gently whispering in your ear in a way that was strangely intimate. “Just once. For me.”

You had no clue why you went along with it, but you did.

“What was your favourite flavour?”

“What?”

“What was your favourite flavour of the sweets that your mother gave you?” He asked.

“Peanut butter.” You replied. “If it was a peanut butter one, she would let me finish the whole thing by myself. And she always laughed when I licked my fingers. Not in a mean way - she wasn’t laughing at me… but she was laughing because she was happy. Happy because she knew I was enjoying it.”

“Now say the words.” He whispered, guiding your hand to raise the wand up into the sky.

Strangely, you trusted him.

“Expecto Patronum.”

Engulfed by the safety of George at your back and feeling the intensity of your mother’s love inside of you, the overwhelming magic flowed through you. In a moment, you were amazed as a bright white light came flowing out of the wand - George’s wand - not just blasting into a shield but forming into a beautiful array of moving, living beings that filled the whole corridor within seconds. The previously dark space was soon lit up by dozens of tiny bright little lights that danced so beautifully for the two of you.

At first you thought they might be butterflies, but when you got a closer look at their wings and their size, you realized that they were moths - not as beautiful or well liked by people. How fitting. You couldn’t help but to reach out and try to catch one - and that dreamy little beam of light, that magical little white moth landed on your extended finger before it dissipated off into nothingness as the magic dissolved and the corridor darkened once again.

“I told you you could do it.” George said cheerfully.

You turned to George, and likely for the first time ever, you smiled at him.

“Thank you, Weasley. I mean it.”

When the Owl Post came the next morning, a random Tawny owl that you did not recognize dropped a poorly wrapped package into your lap and then screeched away. When you peeled it open, you were surprised to find a random jar of some cream, along with a package of peanut butter fudge. It came with a scrawled note that said ‘it would be a shame for that beautiful hand to be scarred forever’.

You peered across to the Gryffindor table and found a certain tall redhead grinning at you, and he gave you a wink. The cream smelled vaguely of green tea, and was very soothing to apply. The marks on your hand faded within a week of use, and it never left a scar. The fudge tasted amazing, and thankfully, did not give you a fever. It reminded you of your mother - and for the first time in a long time, you actually let yourself indulge in those memories.

You had to wonder where he had gotten the sweets on such short notice. But you supposed that was just another ‘Weasley trick’ you weren’t allowed to know about.

That day had shown you a kinder side of George that you had never truly expected even existed.

…

Despite what you believed, George could be just as much trouble by himself, even when Fred wasn’t around for him to conspire with.

The entire week culminated in an incident that you never could have predicted - one that had you mentally begging for Fred’s return.

That afternoon, just after closing, you were tallying up the register as a part of your end-of-day duties, and George walked up to you, seeming far too ‘innocent’ for your liking. His presence now filled you with a slight sense of dread, wondering what he would do next, but you said nothing about it. You didn’t even look up at him - you continued your work, counting the money and writing down your tally while he lingered off near the edge of the counter. You hoped that if you didn’t acknowledge him, whatever prank he had planned next simply wouldn’t play out. You were far too tired for his antics now.

“Y/N,” He called your name gently, and you still didn’t look up.

Instead, you hummed gently in response to acknowledge him, pretending that you were far too busy to look up from your work. He let out a deep sigh, walking around the counter toward you.

“Look, I do have to say that I’m sorry for everything. This week, I pulled a lot of immature pranks on you and it was a step backward between us,” He announced, his tone sounding oddly… insincere.

You finally looked up from the ledger book to face him, and you found that his expression was… smug? His mouth was tight, clearly holding back a smile, and his eyes were glinting with an ardent joy that you knew had to be ill-conceived mischief.

Your stomach churned as you wondered what he was up to, and you immediately knew that the apology was a false, a cover for whatever he was attempting. You didn’t trust him - not one bit.

But you knew that you couldn’t call him out for it right away, otherwise he would simply try again later. And he would come back with a better set up, or simply try to catch you off guard next time. You had to figure out what he was doing first, and put a stop to it.

So for now, you pretended to believe him.

“Yes, it was.” You replied quietly.

You glanced around, trying to see if he had set up any trip-wires, any hanging buckets. You looked down at the drawers in the front counter to see if any of them had moved during the quick break you had taken for a cup of tea (one that you had definitely made for yourself this time). You had to wonder if he had hidden anything inside of them that would jump out at you when you opened them.

“Thank you for apologizing.” Your tone was dead, your mind too busy focusing on trying to figure out his next move.

“I got you something!” He added on excitedly.

When he reached into his pocket, you instinctively took a step back, your eyes glued to his hand as he took a few sweets out and laid them on the counter. The green sour apple candies that you loved. You were instantly suspicious of them, just like you had been the first time he had gifted you some (in the same manner of apology). But you had to guess that he wouldn’t stoop to tampering with them.

You gave him a harsh glance, and he gave you a smile. And then, you reached your hand out to grab one.

But that was your greatest mistake.

The minute your arm was extended, he reached out with his arm - the one that was closest to you, his left, and before you could blink, he wrapped something cold and metal around your right wrist and tightened it. A sharp ‘click’ sounded through the air as he secured the metal around your arm, trapping you.

He started cackling loudly - as both the hilarity and the victory of it truly overcame him, and your brain began to process what had just happened. You lifted your arm up, tugging on the metal, realizing that it was a wrist cuff attached to a chain no more than four inches long, and on the end of that chain was George Weasley.

He had handcuffed himself to you.

What. The. Fuck.

He had cuffed himself into the other side and hidden it under his jacket sleeve before walking up to you, holding the cuff in his hand down by his side to hide it from you. He had planned this out.

But what-? Why had he done this?

Why the fuck had he chained the two of you together?

You yanked on it again, causing his hand to flail along with yours, a sharp bite grinding against your skin as the metal tugged on your own wrist, very secure in place. The realization that the two of you were now solidly attached was truly, fully settling into your brain.

“What the fuck?!” You yelled, shocked and slowly becoming angry as he continued to laugh and beamed a smile at you. “What the fuck is this, George?”

“Oh come on, it’s a joke!” He replied, still grinning. “We both know that you and I could use some extra time together.”

“I said-” You were about to remind him of your previous protests to this exact idea, but he cut you off.

“You said that you didn’t want to spend time together because we’re not friends.” He reminded you. “And the only way for us to become friends is to spend more time together. Ironically.”

He always had a way of making you regret your own words.

You glared at him intensely, now absolutely fuming with annoyance and a growing rage.

“I - I don’t care, you idiot!” You screamed in return, beginning to panic. “Get rid of it! Unlock it!”

You continued to flail in panic, making your own wrist continue to hurt more as the short chain caused his arm to act like a dead weight against your own, preventing you from moving too far away from him. It made you feel so terribly trapped, and you hated it.

Sure, of all the people to be trapped with, he wasn’t the worst by far. But you had already spent so much of your life feeling trapped; you had spent so long being defined by your father’s choices for you, in fear that all eyes in the world were judging you based on his reputation (which mostly turned out to be true). And just as you were barely becoming free from those chains, George had come and slapped another literal one onto your wrist.

It caused a terrible anxiety through you, turning your muscles to putrid stone within seconds and tightening your throat as your body threatened tears. And you refused to let yourself cry in front of him, so of course, it only manifested as harsh anger toward him while your brain put up shields and tried to protect you.

“Calm down, will you?” George replied, his face still vibrant with laughter, obviously not taking you seriously. “It’s just a joke.”

Of course. His singular excuse for everything in life.

“A joke!” You screamed back so harshly that your voice easily broke. “A joke?!”

“Y/N-”

You didn’t let him speak.

“Everything in your life is a joke!”

You shouted, getting closer to his face to magnify your words since you quite literally couldn’t get away.

“You had absolutely no work ethic in school and wasted any brains you had on torturing fellow students for a few cheap laughs and now you wonder why you can’t get a girlfriend because you push away any woman in your life with immature antics and you refuse to actually reflect on anything more serious than what you ate for lunch!”

Your throat became worn out from screaming so many words with so little breath, getting louder as you went along, but it felt nice to get some of the anger out.

George just rolled his eyes and then smirked at you, and you became even more irritated by the fact that he didn’t seem at all phased by your words.

“Are you done, lover?” He asked as you took a breath, still shaking with rage. “You are starting to hurt my one good ear. And it is rather precious to me, as you could understand.” He added on, using his free hand to gesture to that side of his head.

‘Lover’?

This pet name, and the casual nature with which he spoke it, just left odd confusion mixing in with your anger.

“Weasley, I swear to Merlin, if you don’t take this off me within the next minute-!” You began to threaten him, grabbing your wand out of your apron pocket to point it squarely at his chest. “I will singe all the hair off your body and turn your cock into something so shriveled and unrecognizable-!”

“So you do think about my cock, eh?” He said, cutting you off, his smirk growing even more intense now.

You let out a deep growl of frustration and pressed your wand into his throat, and then, as a warning, you began to count.

“Ten, nine, eight, seven-”

You weren’t sure if you were counting down to when you would start firing non-lethal curses at him, or if you were counting down to try and make your rage less potent, but you were glad when it worked.

“Alright, alright, calm down.” George sighed in surrender, and batted your wand down from his throat with his free hand. You weren’t so easily convinced and continued to hold the weapon in his direction, glaring at him. “I’ve got the key right here. It was just a little joke, a wind up, ya know?”

He started searching the pockets of his jacket, finally ready to give up the key and unlock you. You did feel a twinge of relief, even if you refused to show it, keeping your appearance firm and stony - a way that you hadn’t looked at him in a long time.

However, that bit of relief was incredibly short-lived as his hand went into more of his pockets and came up empty-handed again and again, and he seemed to grow increasingly more frantic. You grew more panicked too as you noticed him doubling back and checking his pockets over again, even checking his pants, and dumping things out onto the floor - causing random sweets and crumpled pieces of parchment to fall by your feet…

But still, no key.

“George.” You ground out between your teeth, pressing your wand tightly against his cheek.

“I have it here somewhere,” He mumbled hastily, giving you a nervous grin.

“You lost the key?!” You shouted, lowering your wand now, knowing that another flash of accidental anger would end up with him on the wrong end of a jinx, and (as pissed off as you were) you didn’t want to hurt him by mistake.

George continued frantically fingering his pockets, but his expression grew more honestly worried now. Whether it was because he was terrified of what you might do to him, or because he actually didn’t like the results of his own prank and truly didn’t want to be chained to you, you weren’t sure. You had to guess that it was the latter - being chained to you for a period of time longer than five minutes would be incredibly unpleasant for anyone.

“It - it was an honest mistake, really.” He stuttered out nervously, still frantically looking for the key.

However, you knew that it was just your luck that the key had gone missing - likely fallen out of his pocket somewhere and truly gone. You didn’t count on him finding it anytime soon. Still, you continued to internally panic - you weren’t prepared to spend much longer like this.

George flinched when you waved your wand again, and you wanted to go on a rant about how you weren’t actually going to hurt him (even as much as you wanted to). But instead, you fought against his dead weight to raise the cuff attached to your wrist upward, and then you began firing off spells.

“Alohomora!” You tried the first and most obvious one, and naturally, it did not work. “Aperta!” You tried something a bit more advanced, and still nothing.

“Wow, I actually thought that would work-” George began.

“Shh.” You cut him off, trying to think.

You dug through your knowledge for something a bit more advanced - and you thought of a lock breaking spell that you had read about in a rare Japanese spell book during your time at Hogwarts. Back when you had spent most of your time studying because your social life really hadn’t been that great.

“Hirake Kagi!” You spoke the words sharply, hoping that you remembered the pronunciation well, causing a small bright white light to fire off into the small key hole beside your wrist.

When you tugged on the cuff - still, it was locked solidly tight, and you heaved a grand sigh of frustration.

“Okay, well, that didn’t work, so-” George began to speak again, but you found yourself ignoring him.

You raised your wand again, this time firing off curses toward the short chain that attached the two of you.

“Confractus!” You fired a simple spell with the intention to break the chain, and nothing happened.

“Reducto!”

A large bright white beam of energy burst out of your wand, and as soon as it hit the small chain, it was deflected off the seemingly unbreakable metal and ended up hitting a nearby display of products, destroying a few of the boxes and knocking far more of them over into a heap on the floor.

“Ignitis!”

You moved on to fire, causing a bright orange beam to come shooting out of your wand, one that was also deflected off the metal - this time with slightly worse consequences. The ensuing fragments of energy singed up George’s arm and began to light his coat on fire, and caused you to jump back as particles of ember threatened up toward your face before sizzling out.

“Woah, woah, stop it!” George demanded, grabbing your wand from you and putting it on the counter.

Luckily, he had a decent amount of experience with this kind of stuff due to his and Fred’s early failures with their products, and he didn’t panic - he simply brought his free hand up and began aggressively patting out the fire until his jacket was only dully smoking, which did impress you. You liked that he could be calm among chaos.

“You’re going to kill one of us!” He added on, sounding slightly annoyed himself. Perhaps he had a point. “And trust me, you don’t want to be chained to a dead body that you have to lug around. I am a lot heavier than I look, love.”

The affectionate nickname gave a confusing twist in your stomach, and you glared at him.

In the back of your mind, you did consider the fact that you didn’t want to be chained to his dead body - because it would be terribly inconvenient, and because at the end of the day, you didn’t want to see him hurt. Even if you wanted to strangle him with the chain of the cuffs to prove a point, you would have stopped before he lost consciousness.

“Well what do you suggest, if you’re so clever?” You hissed at him.

He grinned at you.

“Leave it to a Slytherin to try and brute force her way out,” He said, reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket for his own wand.

“This isn’t about Slytherin or Gryffindor, or any of that pathetic bullshit.” You griped, shaking your head. “Whatever, just - what’s your idea?”

He raised his wand proudly and announced his spell.

“Accio key!”

Then, from seemingly every corner of the shop (including the pile of junk that had landed at his feet after he had emptied his pockets), with drawers opening and doors upstairs creaking open, about a dozen different keys came hurling at the two of you. You instinctively ducked down to avoid the sharp metal that would have pierced your skin and likely left harsh gashes due to his lack of foresight. The cuff tugged on your wrist as a reminder of your predicament, and you conveniently used him as a shield for the oncoming debris, hearing him let out a few grunts as some of the keys inevitably hit him.

“Oh yes, that was clever.” You griped sarcastically. “That was downright brilliant!”

“Okay, fine, not my best moment.” George sighed as you stepped out from behind him. “Just help me look through these and see which one is the handcuff key. And then I’ll unlock you and you can be free for the rest of the weekend.”

He let out a tired huff as he bent down and began picking up the collection of keys off the floor, putting them on the counter to go through them.

“And Monday.” You added on. “I’m taking Monday off because of this little stunt.”

“Fine.” He quietly agreed.

The more keys you looked through, the more anxious you became. You recognized each of them - a ring of keys that unlocked different doors in the shop, a key with a fuzzy dice on the end that was a spare for Ron’s Muggle car (that Fred and George maybe had permission to use), a spare key to Ron’s apartment in London in case of emergency, a spare key to the front door of the shop that Fred had lost months ago, a key to your apartment upstairs, a key to the desk in Fred and George’s office, but -

“You’re sure that none of these is the right one?” You pressed, panicking.

“Yes, I’m sure.” George replied, sounding slightly downtrodden about it himself. “It was a little one, a tiny small key-” He gaped, gesturing with his fingers, showing you the intended size.

“And you lost it!” You cried out, angry and upset at the same time. “Oh, you idiot!”

George sighed in defeat and you kicked the counter in front of you, causing all the keys laid out on the countertop to rattle, along with the change that was sitting in the open cash drawer from your still unfinished closing count. Strangely, this caused you to come up with a new idea.

“What shop did you buy the handcuffs from?” You pressed, turning to him with a bright, relieved smile on your face. “We can just go there and buy another set for the key!”

George’s face twisted into a sickly, nervous expression. Your smile immediately dropped, teeth clenching down so hard that your jaw began to hurt as you glared at him even stronger now.

“What?” You demanded harshly, not even opening your mouth to grind out the word.

He was going to kill you with stress before the night was even over. Then he was going to be the one dragging around a dead body.

“I - I didn’t buy them.” He confessed, his voice quiet and obviously embarrassed.

Unable to resist the urge this time, you reached up and slugged him, delivering a harsh, solid punch to his shoulder. He let out a grunt.

“Okay, maybe I deserved that-”

“What did you do?!” You demanded. “What the hell did you get me into?!”

“Look, I’ll fix it, I swear-” He began to ramble out apologies, but you were more interested in something else.

“Where are the handcuffs from?” You asked, slowly creeping into insanity, and definitely losing your patience.

“I found them in Harry’s desk.” He rushed out the words all at once, and your mind began to spin.

You had to guess that he meant Harry Potter.

Which meant that you were truly fucked.

Harry wasn’t officially an Auror, at least not yet. The Ministry had been trying their best to charm him into the program since The War had ended, and this included having him work as a freelance agent on only the most attractive and exciting criminal cases - something that he and Ron liked to talk about a lot. It meant that his name and picture could be slapped all over the Prophet whenever he brought in a high profile Death Eater that had still been on the loose.

Because he didn’t officially work with the Ministry, he didn’t have an office at their headquarters (even as many times as they kept offering him their best, most gorgeous offices, including all the perks). He had told you once that he hated the idea of being ‘cooped up’ underground all day. Though you didn’t see how his current accommodation was much better.

You had been to Grimmauld Place a few times during your time as a member of The Order of Phoenix, but you had only found out that it was Harry’s inheritance and current place of residence a few months after The War. Hermione had invited you over there for dinner (you did appreciate being included, even if Ron and Fred often showed their disdain for her trying to do so). Harry had proudly showed you his office and the many keepsakes within - trophies that Dumbledore or others had gifted to him, and creepy, cursed objects that he had trapped in glass cases that had come with the Black family home.

You could only imagine what kind of ancient demonic magic was keeping the handcuffs from being destroyed.

(Little did you know, these handcuffs were a relatively new pair of Muggle handcuffs that one of the other Aurors had modded with many intense, advanced spells and given to Harry with the purpose of keeping their perps from escaping.)

“It’s not my fault!” George insisted with a yell. “He just left me alone in there with all that stuff! And his desk was unlocked! And I wasn’t even looking in the drawers for a pair of handcuffs, I was looking for documents with some kind of gossip! And when I found them, how was I not supposed to use them for some greater nefarious purpose? It’s entrapment!”

“Just shut up!” You snapped. “Shut up and let me think!”

You became breathless from screaming for a moment, and after you gulped in air, you spoke again.

“What the hell are we gonna do?”

It was more of a rhetorical question, speaking to yourself as you truly took in the utter horror of the situation at hand - being chained to another person with seemingly no way to escape. But naturally, George had to crack another joke.

“I thought you wanted me to shut up so you could think,” He mumbled quietly.

You rolled your eyes sharply.

And strangely, it was your annoyance with him that fueled your next idea.

“Harry’s desk…” You mumbled out. “Maybe he has another key? We have to go and talk to him.”

George frowned again.

“Harry is in Romania.” He said. “Apparently he’s on some top secret mission. Ron couldn’t stop blabbering on about it, so it must be really important.”

Romania. Great.

You clenched your fists incredibly tight, jabbing your nails harshly into your palm, trying to distract yourself from George’s presence. Not ending up in Azkaban for murder was the singular motivation that kept you grounded for a few moments as you forced yourself to take deep breaths rather than to scream.

“So what do you suggest?” You huffed out, your voice quivering with ill-concealed rage.

“We could try Bill?” George posed. “He works with cursed objects sometimes. He might know more about this than we do. He might know how to break us out without the key. I’ll send him an Owl?”

You let out a breath of relief, for once, actually glad that the Weasley family was so large that they had members of such varying degrees of expertise.

“But we have to get to the Owlery before it closes.” He added on, looking at his watch on his free hand.

Before you could blink, he was attempting to move around the counter, dragging you with him in a sharp jolt, causing your shoulder to pain harshly. Your mind took a moment to kick in and realize that you had to walk along with him to avoid that dragged-along effect. Even if Bill could solve this, you would still be stuck close by George for the next few hours.

Great.

As he headed toward the door, going for the Owlery on the other side of Diagon Alley, you realized something even more terrible - he was about to parade you through the streets chained to him. It was the most foolish, embarrassing thing ever, and though it hurt your wrist, you gave a harsh yank back on the cuffs, causing him to hiss in pain quietly and stop dead in his tracks.

“What?” He asked as he looked over his shoulder toward you, his tone now becoming ripe with annoyance.

“I am not being paraded around as your new accessory!” You argued. “I already look foolish enough wearing this gaudy apron! I don’t want to have to explain your unique brand of stupidity to other people!” You demanded, shaking the cuffs for emphasis.

“Well, we are currently stuck together, so if I need to mail an Owl, you’re coming with me!” He shouted back, trying to pull you toward the door once again.

Instinctively, you reached out and stomped on his foot to stop him (your wand still sitting on the counter where he had put it). Your high heeled shoe made a firm imprint in the middle of his expensive dragon-hide oxford and caused a shooting pain through his foot that had him howling and jumping back, glaring at you.

“Okay, stop it!” George huffed at you, wagging a finger tightly in your face that you resisted the urge to reach out a bite simply to spite him. “If we’re going to be stuck like this, even if it’s only for a few hours, we have to agree not to wound each other.”

He would never try to physically hurt you, no matter how upset he was, but he mostly wanted it to be a mutual agreement so that he would be safe from you.

“Fine.” You sighed. He did have a point. Devolving to petty fighting would only make things worse.

Then, you thought of something that would make going out in public a bit more bearable.

“Give me your coat.” You demanded.

“What?” He gaped at you, confused.

“Just give it to me!”

He began to remove it from his free arm, but then he realized a glaring problem - with his hand in the handcuffs, he wouldn’t be able to remove his jacket off the arm that was attached to yours. You saw this issue too and let out a huff, grabbing the fabric from him anyway - it would still work fine for your purposes. You took it as far down his arm as you could and then draped the fabric over your joined wrists, doing your best to conceal the handcuffs from any public eyes. Still feeling the chain biting into your skin as the distance tugged on your wrists, you moved to grab his hand, hating how blazen warm his skin was as you laced your fingers with his to keep him still.

“You know if you wanted to hold my hand, you could’ve just as-” He began to say, smirking at you.

“Shut up.” You hissed at him. “Just go.” You motioned toward the door, and the two of you finally set off.

To the late-afternoon stragglers in Diagon Alley, the two of you would have looked like a simple couple holding hands as you walked along, too lovestick to let each other go. No one would have suspected that you were actually chained together under the fabric of George’s coat due to an ill-timed, poorly thought out ‘prank’.

Apparently it was almost too convincing.

George paid for some supplies at the Owlery to write his letter, and of course, he had to be the one to write it because he had conveniently set this up so that his proper, dominant hand would be the one free and anything you wrote with your non-dominant hand would be awful chicken scratch. You almost had to wonder in the back of your mind if your spells had gone so wrong because you hadn’t been using your proper wand hand.

But you couldn’t linger on those thoughts for long, because the woman behind the counter kept eyeing the two of you heavily as your joined hands rested on top of the counter under the folded fabric of his jacket.

“You two are just the sweetest, aren’t you?” She said, smiling at both of you past thick wrinkles, clearly endeared by a young couple. “It’s just so sweet to see a couple so in love that they run errands together - just can’t leave each other’s side, not for a moment.”

“Oh we’re certainly attached, alright.” You replied, knowing that the woman was too rosy-eyed to pick up on the bitter sarcasm in your voice.

“I wouldn’t trade my Y/N for anything,” George added on, giving you a fake, gooey smile. You resisted the urge to hit him again. “We’ll be back here soon mailing the wedding invitations.”

You gave him a sharp glare for this comment, especially when the woman giggled brightly at this and started asking George more questions - wanting to know about what day your wedding was planned for and how long the two of you had been together. You were thankful when he wrapped up the conversation with her and mailed off his letter to Bill, and after some more dreadful hand holding back down the street, the two of you got back to the shop.

He locked up behind the two of you and you both decided to wait for the reply upstairs in your apartment. You hated feeling embarrassed by the bits of mess that you had naturally left in your apartment, not knowing that anybody else would be seeing it anytime soon. Random dishes in the sink, an unfolded blanket on the couch, random magazines around. You wanted to rush to clean up, you wanted to do something -

“We should probably sit down.” George said, pulling out one of the chairs at the small kitchen table. “It might be a while.”

You didn’t even have the energy to respond with anger.

You simply pulled out the chair opposite and collapsed into it, glad that you could yank off your apron over your head and throw it to the side.

…

You and George waited in silence for the return Owl.

You picked up a nearby book, trying your hardest to read when his presence was so distracting, and he simply sat there, contemplating (hopefully considering his life choices and thinking about the consequences of his actions). About an hour passed before there was light tapping on the window, and you were grateful to look up and find a brown barn owl there, waiting for the two of you. George rushed up to open the window and you let out a hiss of pain as he inadvertently tugged on your wrist, still not used to being so closely attached.

“We’re still attached, moron,” You grunted out, rushing out of your chair to follow him.

“You know, you don’t have to call me a moron every five minutes.” George sighed. “I know that what I’ve done is stupid.”

He opened the window and took the envelope from the owl and slipped a coin into a pouch on its leg as a tip for the delivery - clearly another Owlery owned owl.

“If you knew that, then you wouldn’t have done it.” You replied dully.

George didn’t reply any further, too busy ripping open the envelope to read the letter while you closed the window. You were curious, but too nervous to read over his shoulder; even when you took a glance at the paper, you found the handwriting too messy to even make-out. Though with the way George was murmuring under his breath as he read it, apparently he could understand it just fine.

“Oh.”

“What?” You snatched the letter from him, though you didn’t bother to read it, looking from the parchment to George’s once again nervous expression. “What?”

“He said that he knows a good professional Ministry curse breaker that he can get us an appointment with.” George announced, forcing a grin. Clearly trying to make you feel better about the news.

You had a feeling that there was a very large ‘but’ coming. And when you didn’t say anything - when you didn’t start celebrating, instead staring him down with an imposing look, leaving the air open for more words, George provided you with it.

“But the next available appointment is in two or three days.”

“Two or three days?!” You screamed, your throat becoming sore from how much you had screamed that day. “Have you stressed the exact nature of our predicament to him?”

“Yes!” He assured you. “But these are very busy people! And they’re dealing with situations much more life-threatening than ours at present!”

George Weasley had handcuffed himself to you, and now the two of you were stuck together.

...

A/N: I will ask you kindly - if you enjoyed this fic, please reblog it or comment something meaningful down below. I would love to have a conversation with people who enjoyed the fic and sat through the entire thing to be able to read this ending message.

Typically, with a multi-part fic, I would have some kind of reblog and comment goal at the end asking people to give the fic a certain number of comments and reblogs before I post the next part, but I have found that even this doesn't get people to meaningfully engage with fics. The last time I did this with a fic, the goal was not met, and it has been sitting there for months with enough likes to have more than doubled the goal, but people just don't give a fuck to actually comment or reblog. They just leave a like and move on without caring how much effort it actually takes to write a 30k, 40k, 50k fic.

If you're going to comment, I don't care to know if the writing quality was good or anything like that (because it doesn't really start a conversation when people go "this is so good!" it just makes me nod and throw a thumbs up - I want to have genuine conversations about my fics and what is happening in them), I do want to have a genuine discussion about the plot of the fic, the dynamic between the characters, and what you anticipate will happen in the next part - I want to talk about your experience reading it and how that experience differs from other fics. I don't just want to be praised (in fact, I don't want to be praised at all), I want to have fun talking about the characters and the universe here.

Because in case it passed your notice, writing a 50k fanfic (which, this adds up to 50k between both parts) - is a lot of work. And all I ask for in return after putting in hours and hours worth of hard, back-breaking work into a fic like this and then posting it for free, is that people take a few minutes to discuss it with me if they took the time to read it.

Also I ask for the courtesy that people please don't hound me and bother me by asking when the next part is coming out.

The next part will be posted when I am finished editing it, and that could be in 2 days or 2 weeks or 2 months, or even 2 years from now if something comes up. Stick around my blog if you want to see it, especially because I will be posting updates about the progress. And for reference, the next part will be the final part - this is not a series, this is a oneshot that has been divided in half for more convenient editing and reading.

That's all. Even if you don't comment, I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope that you have a great day. <3

#sundrop writes #george weasley #george weasley x reader #george weasley x slytherin reader #george weasley smut #george weasley x you #george weasley x y/n #george weasley fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter smut #harry potter fandom

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ckret2 · 11 months ago

Text

Chapter 54 of everybody being really eager to kill their prisoner human Bill Cipher for good: the gang's trying a new way to create fuel for the one weapon guaranteed to destroy Bill.

It goes so great.

As Ford drove to Northwest Manor, Dipper skimmed through the introduction to Flatworld, where Edward Bishop Bishop was pretending that his book had been dictated to him by a sentient square; but he couldn't focus on it. He sighed, shut the book, and stared out the passenger window at the passing trees.

"Something on your mind?" Ford asked.

"I'm thinking about the Axolotl's poem again. The one about Bill."

"Ah. Still trying to remember the rest?"

"Kinda. Mabel and I are working on it together," Dipper said. "But it's not that. I've just been wondering... what if the poem is... you know, part of a prophecy about Bill or something? Mabel remembered another line of the poem—'A different form, a different time.' What if the Axolotl was telling us why Bill's back as a human? Maybe we need him here—to, to use his powers to fight off a bigger threat or something. Do you think that's possible?" He held back another question: what happens if we kill him before then?

Ford frowned thoughtfully. "I've been thinking about the Axolotl as well," he said. "About the worlds I visited that called it a god of criminals, tyrants, and luck. That sounds to me like the exact kind of being that would be Bill's ally. And it's odd how resistant Bill was to telling us anything about the Axolotl, when it simply passed over town for a few seconds and then moved on. Why the secrecy? How does Bill think it benefits him for us not to know about it?" Ford shook his head. "I think you're on to something, Dipper—I think whatever the Axolotl told you is important. The question is: important for whom?"

Dipper's stomach turned. The Axolotl had radiated such kindness; it was hard for Dipper to believe it could be up to anything evil with Bill. But then—Dipper clutched at Flatworld with the damning biography on the back—but then, how many people had Bill himself fooled with the benevolent teacher act?

Dipper understood now why "Don't Trust Bill" had so quickly turned into "Trust No One." Even when you knew that there was only one real enemy—even when you knew that most people out there were still reasonably honest and friendly—you could never tell just how far Bill's shadow stretched. "I guess that's true. We can't really know."

"We can't know yet. But it is worth trying to figure out," Ford said. "I wish I could tell you where to start looking for answers. For now... we'll just have to consider anything possible."

Ford was right. But all the same, every time Dipper paranoidly asked himself What if Grunkle Ford is right, what if the Axolotl really is on Bill's side, a second, even more paranoid, even more worried voice asked, But what if he isn't?

####

When they arrived, Fiddleford was already in his lab, hard at work on the miniature particle accelerator they'd come to see him about.

"The paradox what was powering it started yowling" Fiddleford said. "So obviously it ain't a paradox no more."

Ford grimaced. "That does lay to rest whether the cat is alive or dead."

"Sure does," Fiddleford said, sighing. "So I let the cat outside and I'm rebuilding the whole contraption to run on a more robust paradox. I hope you've got better news for me, Stanford."

"We hope so too. I think Dipper might have the solution to our fuel generation problem."

They briefly explained Dipper's unfortunate puppet incident last summer—Fiddleford had to take a break in the middle to grab a cup of coffee, "To steady my nerves,"—its ongoing effects on his sleep, and the new developments of the last few days, culminating in Dipper learning how to project his soul out of his body—

—which, Ford now realized, he probably should have expected Fiddleford to take poorly.

"Sweet sasparilla!" Fiddleford kicked over his chair while jumping onto the nearest table. "You're dead?!"

"What?" Dipper said. "No, I—"

"You're like a ghost possessing a zombie!"

Dipper thought that over. "Whoa..."

But, even though Fiddleford thought the whole affair went against the rightful order of the world, he agreed that it was a sound idea and worth trying. "It's lucky that my tater tot and I hunted out all the ghosts in this place during our spring cleaning," he said, opening a cabinet. He retrieved what looked like a pair of vacuums redesigned to be worn like backpacks with an assortment of random electronics dangling from wires. He held up a set of goggles and headphones hanging off one of the vacuums. "I invented these doohickeys that'll let you see and hear ghosts! They'll let us keep in contact with Dipper while he's out of his body." He set the vacuums on a table near the miniature particle accelerator and said, "First, though—Stanford, I need you to help me rebuild this machine."

"Of course." Ford turned away from the vacuum he'd been inspecting to look at the miniature particle accelerator.

Dipper said, "Wait, there are other ghosts in this mansion?"

"Yep!"

"I hunted one at the Northwests' big party last year," Dipper said. "How many more ghosts are in here?"

"We've caught, oh... thirty or forty so far."

"Seriously? That's amazing." Dipper was already thinking about the amazing Ghost Harassers episode this place could have been. Maybe even a miniseries.

"Aw, it weren't that hard. If you leave the TV on, they like to flock around it to watch. All you've gotta do is hide in the corner until a whole big bunch of 'em are gathered 'round—and then ya get them!"

"Oh," Dipper said. "Huh. I just tricked one into getting trapped in a silver mirror."

"Well, that's right impressive too. I never woulda thunk of that," Fiddleford said. "Me and Tate have been sucking them into cooling pouches in these here vacuums and then sticking the pouches in a chest freezer down in the dungeon! Maybe I oughta line the freezer with silver."

"This place has a dungeon?" Dipper asked.

Before Fiddleford could respond, Ford asked, "Which parts are we replacing?" He was inspecting the miniature particle accelerator.

"All of them!"

Ford gave Fiddleford a surprised look. "All of them?"

"Yep! Every last one!"

"Is the design changing that much?"

"Nope! It's staying exactly the same!"

"Then... why can't we just use the same machine we already have?"

"We will be using the same machine!" Fiddleford smiled mischievously. "Or will we?"

"Ah! I see! The particle accelerator of Theseus," Ford said. "Very clever."

"And kinder on the local stray cats, I reckon."

Dipper offered his assistance, but the work involved too much welding and buzzsawing for him to try untrained, so he was directed to sit a safe distance away with the first aid kit. At least it gave him a chance to read some more. He had to shove aside a couple flashlights and the glue grenade to reach where the slim book had slid to the bottom of his backpack during their walk from the car.

He skimmed over some of the worldbuilding looking for the story before he realized the story was the wordbuilding and looped back. It was a lot bleaker than he expected, even after Mabel's warning. Rigid class system, oppressive government, all kinds of horrifying shape prejudices... Frustrating dream visits to the ignorant line people in the first dimension who didn't believe in the second dimension, and to the self-absorbed King Zero in the point-sized zeroth dimension who thought a whole universe was contained inside him... A just as frustrating visit from a sphere who simply couldn't explain the third dimension in a way the square protagonist could understand, which was even more annoying since the square had just seen how the first dimension couldn't comprehend the second for the same reasons, so why couldn't he accept the possibility of a third dimension he couldn't imagine? Dipper got that it was supposed to be a metaphor to help three-dimensional readers understand that not being able to visualize a fourth dimension didn't mean it was impossible; but still. Come on, man. Don't be stupid.

On the other hand, at least now Dipper had a framework to understand the concept of higher dimensions and probably a leg up on next year's geometry. Would high school geometry cover four-dimensional space?

After a couple of hours of work and a break for lunch, the miniature particle accelerator was rebuilt and ready for another attempt to generate fuel. Fiddleford pulled on one of his ghost vacuums like a backpack, put on the set of connected headphones and goggles, and settled his glasses on over the goggles. "Y'all ready?"

"Ready," Ford said. He was seated at the accelerator's monitors, holding the jug that would contain any NowUSeeitNowUDontium they generated, and wearing the other vacuum—with the goggles over his glasses, and he was a bit worried about how Fiddleford had positioned his.

"Ready," Dipper said, a tad less certainly. What if he couldn't do it today? What if he'd never actually been able to do it last night and the whole thing really had been a dream?

But Fiddleford flipped the accelerator's power on, stepped back, and said, "All right! Do your thing!"

"Okay." Dipper stared straight at the machine, and—eugh—thought about degloving his body from his soul, peeling out of his skin fingers first.

This was only the second time he'd left his body deliberately. He'd observed in the past that the mindscape was strangely gray and still compared to the real world—but he'd never realized just how stark and swift the change was, like all the color and warmth had been abruptly sucked from reality. He shivered.

Ford inhaled sharply. Fiddleford stumbled back against the nearest table and yelped, "Flipping flapjacks!"

"You can both still see me?" Dipper said. "Can you hear me, too?"

"Loud and clear," Ford said.

"Like the voices of the dead." Fiddleford shuddered. "Welp, let's get this over with. I don't like all this ghost business. It ain't natural."

Ford gave him an amused look. "Since when have you ever been concerned about what's 'natural'? Didn't the engineering club vote you 'most likely to build a robot that flies in the face of God'?"

"You hush! There's nothing unnatural about iron, electromagnetism, and flamethrowers."

Dipper studied his body's face, its eyes pointed blankly toward the particle accelerator. "Well, I'm looking at the experiment, but I'm definitely not thinking about it. I think that's half of the paradox?"

"That's right," Fiddleford said. "Now, you just—float yerself on over to the other side of the accelerator, and think about it without looking at it."

"Right." Dipper positioned himself directly across the accelerator from his body, shut his eyes, and tried to think experimental thoughts. He didn't know much about Dontium besides what Ford had written about it in Journal 3—that it was inert when you were looking at it and radioactive when you weren't—so, if the miniature particle accelerator generated any, would he get blasted with radiation? Or was his body staring at the accelerator enough to keep it inert? But no—it was supposed to fill up the jug Ford was holding, right? Ford was observing it. Dipper tried to imagine what must be happening inside the accelerator; how did it work, would particles spontaneously generate in the tubes? Maybe they circled around until they fell into the hose to the jug...

He heard Ford gasp. "Fiddleford, look at this— Don't listen to me Dipper, just keep—keep thinking whatever you were thinking!"

"Is it working?"

"It was! Don't let us distract you."

Dipper tried to ignore the sound of Fiddleford running over to Ford, and started humming to drown out their hushed conversation. That was good, right? It meant the experiment was working. Keep thinking about that—experiment. Experiment. Expeeeriment. ... He wondered if trying to do the experiment by putting himself and Tyrone on either side of the accelerator would have worked, or if it had to be Dipper's soul and his body—

"Hot diggety!" Fiddleford shouted. "We've reached critical mass!"

"What does that mean, is it bad?" Dipper opened one eye a crack, trying to squint enough that he couldn't see the particle accelerator. "Is it gonna explode?"

Ford explained, "It means we've generated enough Dontium that it can sustain its own existence. Now, even if you get distracted, what we've already generated will remain. It can only go up from here."

"Wow," Dipper said. "That only took, what, a couple of minutes?"

"Less than that! During our last attempt, we tried for hours without reaching critical mass," Ford said. "Your idea was right on the money. Excellent work, Dipper."

Dipper grinned. After all that anxiety, it was almost a letdown how easy it was, but the coolness factor made up for it. He could just imagine the conversations the first week of high school: What did I do over summer break? Oh, nothing much. Just synthesized a new element. To fuel a weapon custom-designed to kill an immortal chaos god. And did I mention I was a ghost at the time? It didn't quite top last summer's adventures, but...

Then something went wrong.

There was a noise halfway between the electric buzz of a tesla coil and the rip of Velcro being torn apart. A stench like burning hair filled the air. A line of shifting colorful light began worming its way out of the center of the particle accelerator and up into the air.

"Oh no. Ohhh no!" Fiddleford grabbed his head. "The micro-rips! The threadbare fabric of reality! Our experiment put too much of a strain on it! We tore straight through!" One foot bounced agitatedly, "Ohhh, I knew I shoulda run some calculations before substituting in Dipper for you and Stanley."

Dipper gasped as the line of light began to agonizingly stretch open wider. Reality began seeping over its edges and dripping through into the kaleidoscopic miasma beyond. It developed a second horizontal rip across its middle as reality stretched beyond endurance in multiple directions. "What—is that?" He was afraid he knew.

"A dimensional rift," Fiddleford said.

"The Nightmare Realm," said Ford.

The last frayed thread holding reality together snapped apart, and the rift tore open wide, fully exposing the Earth to the roaring roiling chaos beyond.

They screamed.

"Hello?" A giant set of dentures with stubby arms and legs leaned through the rift. "Oh hey! Aren't you the guys that killed Bill?"

They screamed again.

"Is screaming how humans say hi?" the monster asked. "I'm Teeth. Aaah!" He turned toward Ford. "Hey! Fingers! Lookin' less electrocuted than the last time I saw you—"

Ford socked Teeth in the incisor, knocking him back through the rift. "Back, you! You and your 'friends' are not welcome in this dimension!"

"Ow. What the heck, man."

Fiddleford shouted, "Don't stop observing the Dontium!" He bounded across the room on all four to scoop up the milk jug and stare at it.

Ford nearly toppled through the rift, and had to grab onto the miniature particle accelerator as the heaviest nearby object to anchor himself. The rift sucked on reality like a vacuum, and the longer it was open the more powerful it grew.

Over the roar of the rift, Dipper yelled "What do we do?!"

"We have to seal it! Before it sucks all of Gravity Falls into the Nightmare Realm!"

"How?!"

Last summer, the instant Bill had no longer been around to maintain the dimensional rift, it had also sucked reality into it, starting with everything that properly belonged in the Nightmare Realm; but then it had also quickly sealed itself back shut. On the other hand, this rift was just opening wider and wider. Maybe it wasn't like the rift Bill had used to enter Gravity Falls, then? Maybe it was structured more like the wormholes that had been left behind after Weirdmageddon—

"I've got it!" Ford picked up Dipper's body—trying not to shudder at how lifeless it felt—and unzipped his backpack. "Is the alien adhesive grenade still in here?"

"It should be! Let me see." Dipper floated over to peer into his backpack.

The rift was already strong enough to drag at Ford's clothing. The lightest objects in the room lifted into the air and were sucked through. Papers. Pencils. Coffee mugs. Dipper's soul.

He screamed. "GRUNKLE FORD!"

"Dipper!" Ford grabbed for Dipper's ankle, but his hand passed right through. Ford's blood ran cold as Dipper tumbled head over heels into the Nightmare Realm.

"Look at that," Teeth said, watching Dipper soar by. "Dinner delivery."

There was no difference between the mindscape and reality in the Nightmare Realm, if Ford followed Dipper through he'd be able to get a grip on Dipper there. But how would he carry Dipper back to Earth without him melting through Ford's grasp the moment they were through the rift? Didn't matter, grab Dipper first, then figure it out—

Fiddleford shoved the jug of Dontium in Ford's hands as he ran past. "Watch over this!"

"What—!"

Fiddleford jumped into the Nightmare Realm, the end of a long extension cord tied around his waist. He stretched out the hose of his ghost vacuum and flipped a switch, and with a yelp Dipper's soul was sucked inside. Ford gasped in relief.

Trying to keep as much of his attention on the potentially-radioactive jug as possible, Ford reeled Fiddleford back in, shoved the jug in his hands, and dug into Dipper's backpack again until he found the alien adhesive grenade. He pulled the pin and chucked it through the rift. "Duck!"

He shielded Dipper's body and Fiddleford shielded the Dontium jug as the grenade exploded. Even so, the force of it blew aside everything within ten feet of the rift and sent both of them sprawling. When Ford glanced back over his shoulder, the adhesive had gummed up the opening of the rift like a popped glowing magenta bubblegum bubble; and as he watched, it sucked the opening shut. In a few seconds the air was still and quiet, and the only sign the rift had ever existed was an immense, jagged vertical line in the air around which the light refracted wrong.

Fiddleford gingerly got back to his knees, then pulled off his glasses and pushed up his goggles. One of the lenses had been crushed, and the glasses' frame was bent beyond repair.

Ford heaved a long, heavy sigh. "A bit too familiar, wasn't it?"

Fiddleford blinked at him. "Wasn't what?"

"The—reeling you in from the Nightmare Realm?" Ford said. At Fiddleford's blank look, Ford said, "The portal test?"

"Oh." Fiddleford scratched his head. "I... still don't remember it too clearly."

"Ah. Yes. Of course." Ford's stomach churned with guilt as he looked away from Fiddleford. Over thirty years late was too late to apologize, wasn't it? (Over the past year he'd wondered, again and again; and again and again he'd decided that it was.) "Thank you for saving—" He gasped, "Dipper!"

"Oh, right!" Fiddleford took off his vacuum, dropped it on the floor, and unzipped its bag. The ghosts of a Northwest in a buckskin coat and a confused-looking hippie escaped into the air. "Hey," Fiddleford barked. "You get back here!" He raised the vacuum's hose and flipped its switch. He caught the hippie, but as soon as she was sucked in she flew out the unzipped bag and off to freedom again. Fiddleford lowered the hose and shook a fist at the retreating spirits. "I'll get you ectoplasmic varmints, just you wait!"

Ford knelt on the floor and held the bag open wider. Dipper floated out, arms crossed tight and shivering. "So... so cold... and dark... and really, really dusty."

"Let's get you back where you belong."

Ford held up Dipper's body as he lay back down in it. He could see the moment color flooded back into Dipper's cheeks and his eyes focused again. Dipper groaned.

Ford said, "You're never doing that again."

"I am never doing that again," Dipper said.

"We can't do that again," Fiddleford said. "The fabric of reality in this town is too unstable to handle another paradoxical physics experiment that powerful! We'd rip open another rift to the Nightmare Realm!"

"And we just tossed away all of our remaining alien adhesive," Ford sighed. It left Gravity Falls vulnerable if any more rips formed. Sometime soon he'd have to go back to the alien crash site and see if there was any more adhesive he could scrounge up; but even if he did, they couldn't risk wasting more of it like this.

"But did we get what we needed?" Dipper asked.

Fiddleford held up the milk jug of Dontium and shook it. It had a strange shifting color, wavering between cyan and orange depending on the lighting. "Looks like we got about three-fourths of a gallon," Fiddleford said.

"It's only enough to fully power one shot," Ford said. "But... one shot is all it'll take to destroy Bill." His stomach flipped nervously as he said it. He'd been anxious every other time he'd prepared to kill Bill, but that had always been because he'd been preparing to battle for the fate of the universe with a godlike monster who could easily kill him or worse. For the first time, he was preparing to execute a defenseless prisoner, and he didn't know whether it would make the universe any safer.

For half the summer he'd hoped Bill was harmless. Now he wished he had proof that Bill wasn't, so that he could lay his conscience to rest.

Dipper looked as uncomfortable as Ford felt; but when he caught Ford's gaze, he hardened his expression and nodded. Ford nodded back.

"WOOHOO!" Fiddleford leaped his full height straight up, making Ford and Dipper start. "We done it! YAHOO!" He waved his hat around ecstatically, doing a little jig in place. "YIPPEE! HIP HIP HURRrr—hey, how come you fellers ain't celebrating?"

Ford didn't know how to explain without making Fiddleford worry he was at risk of falling under Bill's spell again. "We'll celebrate when he's dead."

####

"Who was at the door?" 8 Ball shouted. When he didn't get a response, he paused his game. "Teeth?"

Teeth waddled into the game room. His face was completely plastered shut with some kind of glowing purple glue.

Pyronica cracked up and Paci-Fire chuckled darkly. 8 Ball sighed, "What'd you get into, you idiot?"

Teeth waved his hands emphatically.

"All right, okay." 8 Ball stood and stretched. "Does anyone have the number of that lamp guy Bill used to hook up with?"

Half an hour later, having lured over Lava Lamp Guy with the false promise of ping pong pool and illicit liquids, they cornered him in a bathroom, with Zanthar sitting in the tub restraining him while Paci-Fire struggled to hold his face still.

"Please!" Lava Lamp Guy screamed. "Let me go! I'll do anything you want! My neurologist said I can't take much more of this!"

"Cease your complaints," Paci-Fire said, as 8 Ball took off Lava Lamp Guy's bowler. "You shall not dissuade us. We do this because we have no choice in the matter."

"Why not?!"

"Because none of us feel like making the trip to a dimension with a drugstore."

8 Ball stuck a soup ladle into the open top of Lava Lamp Guy's head and fished around until he got a scoop of the red goo floating around in the thinner orange liquid. Lava Lamp Guy howled in agony. Zanthar heaved a weary sigh.

8 Ball carried the ladle over to where Teeth was sitting on the toilet lid kicking his feet. "Here you go, bud."

Teeth clapped his hands, grabbed an oversized toothbrush, and held it out for 8 Ball to pour the goop on. He scrubbed his teeth until the goop dissolved the adhesive. "Whew!" He stretched his jaw a few times, then jumped to his feet. "Thanks! I was worried I was gonna miss karaoke night." He looked in the sink mirror to scrub off the remaining scraps of adhesive.

8 Ball put Lava Lamp Guy's hat back on. Lava Lamp Guy groaned, "I think I forgot my third husband."

"You've only been married twice," Hectorgon lied.

"Oh." Confused, Lava Lamp Guy said, "Alright."

Teeth muttered, "Blech, divorce memories." He grabbed a bottle of mouthwash to clear out the taste.

"So what happened?" Kryptos asked. He was hovering in the doorway beside Pyronica.

"I'unno. I think the Dimension 46ers were messing around with their portal or something? They opened up a portal here."

"What? Uh-uh," Pyronica said. "It had to be some other dimension. We just invaded them, why would they open the portal again?"

"No no, that sounds like humans to me," Kryptos said. "If one of them pushes a button and immediately dies, the guy standing next to him will go, 'I wonder if it does that every time.' I've seen them do it."

"It was definitely them, I saw that local contractor Bill recruited for the portal who went nuts. Fingers or whoever."

8 Ball groaned. "You mean the guy that invaded the Quadrangle and tried to kill everybody?"

"Yeah. That guy. He told me I wasn't welcome on Earth and chucked a glue bomb in my face. I was like, well alright, buddy, I'm not the one who opened up a portal in your house, you could have just stayed home instead of ruining my day," Teeth said. "I didn't really say that to him. I thought it."

"So now the humans are invading us." Pyronica threw her hands in the air. "Great! This is just terrific! Bill teaches them how to make their own portals, they follow us home, and now we're about to have a pest problem that knows how to use tools! How long is it until this whole place is crawling with humans?! I'm going househunting, how many rooms should I look for? 8 Ball?"

"I'm in."

"Teeth?"

Teeth sighed, but said, "Yeah. The neighborhood's going downhill. Especially if we're gonna have a pest problem."

"Big Z?"

Zanthar gave a thumbs up.

Pyronica looked at Paci-Fire. He averted his gaze. Pyronica said, "Paci?"

Sullenly, he said, "We should ask Keyhole's opinion as well."

She laughed in disbelief. Nobody cared about Keyhole's opinion, he went with whatever everyone else went with. Appealing to Keyhole was just a delaying tactic. "Fine, sure. We'll get Keyhole's opinion."

"I'm not going," Hectorgon said, crossing his arms.

Relieved, Kryptos said, "Yeah. Me neither."

"You don't have to," Pyronica snapped. "You two and Morph can wait for Bill to come back from the dead as long as you want. But the rest of us are leaving."

Kryptos tilted toward the hall, gesturing for Hectorgon to follow him away from the others. "How long do you think we can hold this place without the outerplanars?" The Quadrangle was all that remained of Bill's turf. Without Bill's energy boosting them, none of the shapes were particularly powerful. They'd always depended upon the other Henchmaniacs to guard Bill's stronghold, the heavy-hitters like Zanthar and Pyronica. Even Bill preferred to let them fight his battles when he could; Bill's energy was much vaster, but less renewable.

Hectorgon grimaced uncertainly. "We've gotta think of something fast."

####

Dipper stared at the jug in his lap, ensuring it didn't turn radioactive before they got home. Bill practically seemed to have a radar for Ford—and on top of that, could see through walls—but as far as he cared Dipper may as well have not even existed; so they'd decided that Ford would go in the main door to ensure Bill's attention was turned away while Dipper went through the gift shop and took the elevator down to Ford's study. Ford had told Dipper where to find a lead locker that would keep the Dontium contained until Ford could use it to refuel the Quantum Destabilizer; all he had to do was put it in and stare through the crack until he'd slammed the door shut.

And once they'd decided on that, the drive home had fallen deathly silent.

As the Mystery Shack appeared through the trees, Dipper asked, "We're doing the right thing, right?" His voice was quiet. "I hate him, but—we owe him our lives. And there's that prophecy..."

"Lives can't be owed," Ford said. "Yesterday he may have saved us, but tomorrow he would still destroy our world in a heartbeat. We can be grateful to be alive—but we can't let that stop us."

"So, we're doing the right thing?"

Ford was silent for much longer than Dipper would have liked. "I hope so."

####

(We're moving toward some important stuff!! Hope y'all enjoyed and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this week's chapter!)

#dipper pines #stanford pines #grunkle ford #fiddleford mcgucket #henchmaniacs #(for the art & chapter)#bill cipher #human bill cipher #(who doesn't make an appearance in this chapter but the whole fic's about him and nobody can shut up about him so he's getting tagged)#(is this the first chapter bill hasn't appeared in?? might be)#gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

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