Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes was closing. Many of the shops throughout Wizarding Britain were, after the war, but Harry wondered if he would feel any of their losses so keenly as the joke shop's. Ginny had been the one to announce it to him.
"George's packing up," she'd said, looking understandably unhappy about it.
"Packing up?" Harry has asked, confused.
When she'd explained that he planned to close shop and move to Romania to work with Charlie's friend on some clerical post, Harry had been completely taken aback.
And so her found himself walking up the shop, with the slight hope that he would succeed in changing his friend's mind. The first thing he noticed as he walked in was that the usually cheerful and vibrant storefront was empty and dark. He was just entering, when he heard a crash from the back room. Instinctively, he ran towards it, wand at the ready.
When he opened the door, however, all he saw was George, standing breathlessly at one end of the room. Near the wall opposite to him, a lot of familiar bottles and devices lay broken. The state of the wall itself left no doubt about how they had been destroyed. Even as Harry watched, George picked up a vial and threw it at the wall. It hit with a loud shattering noise. The liquid stained the wall, while the now-broken glass fell among the other ruins.
There were tears running down George's face, but his expression was astrange mix of despair and anger. Just as another vial was going to face the fate of its predecessors, Harry Accioed it to himself. George, who had not even noticed the other wizard's presence until then, now turned to face him.
Harry looked at him calmly.
"Why?" he asked.
George stared at him blankly for a few moments before nearly collapsing to the floor.
"I couldn't…do it anymore," he replied. His voice was quiet, but it slightly quivered. Harry walked over to him and sat down on the ground beside him.
"I miss him," George added, after a pause.
"We all do. I know none of us can share your pain, but this isn't the way to heal."
"Each time I look at anything in this shop, I…"
George couldn't continue. He didn't need to.
"He'd hate to see you doing this to yourself," Harry reminded him.
"But he can't see me, can he? He's…gone!" George raised his voice somewhat. Harry could clearly hear the pain in it.
"His work doesn't have to be."
"What?"
"Everything he has done for us, we'll always remember that. But this shop, it meant the world to him. Both of you gave your everything to this little place. Are you going to destroy all of it? If you keep it, you'll always have a part of him, and so will anyone who visits here."
George stared at Harry as if the thought had never struck him. It probably hadn't Harry realized. George had always looked at the place as a reminder of Fred's death. He had forgotten that it was a part of Fred's life as well.
"Besides, we both know you'll make a terrible clerk," Harry added, smiling.
"A pathetic one," George agreed, wiping the tears away using his sleeve. He looked around at the room with a sparkle in his eyes that Harry hadn't seen in a while. A sparkle that told him that Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes would make people smile for a long time yet.
Notes: Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Assignment 7
Prompt: Care of Magical Creatures,
Task 1: Write about someone throwing objects for some reason.