Hi everyone! How's everything going for you guys?

For those of you who are reading "Trials and Tribulations of a Wizarding War" I am still working on it, but I'm having a little trouble getting past one particular part, so it might still be a while, but I'll post it as soon as I finish the next chapter, I promise!

So this is an idea that's been on my mind for a few months, but I didn't begin writing it until last night. I stayed up until almost 2:30 AM, trying to get it down on virtual paper. It's different than what I usually write - Hermione/Draco and Harry/Ginny - but I think it's a good difference, plus it's a lot of fun getting into George's head, trying to pinpoint the way he might think :)

Disclaimer: As much as I wish I did, I don't own Harry Potter, just the plot, and I'm not even making money off of that, it's just for enjoyment.

Chapter 1 – 1 Bottle Too Many

"George Weasley, you are going to stop this foolishness right now!" she screamed at me, inches from my face.

I smiled sweetly at her and raised the firewhiskey bottle to my lips again. "Try and stop me. Go on Hermione, you're the brightest witch of our age, show me what you can do."

She glared ferociously at me. "You are being an absolute moron! I know you're grieving for Fred, we all are, but that doesn't mean you can just sink into a shell of your formal self."

I took another swig from the bottle. "Sure I can. Honestly, I'm enjoying being a shell of my formal self, it's so nice and peaceful. No one telling me what to do, no one bothering me, no one trying to change me. Just me and the bottle and my drunken thoughts."

"Thus the point," Hermione snapped, pointing an accusing finger at me. "Your drunken thoughts."

I shook the last few drops of the alcohol into my mouth. "What's the point again?"

"YOU'RE DRUNK!" she screamed as loud as she possibly could.

I saw someone that was passing by the shop halt and stare around a bit nervously at Hermione's shout. I smirked.

"Hermione, if you keep yelling at me, people are going to think this place is haunted by violent ghosts."

"I DON'T CARE!"

I shrugged. "Well, all right then, have it your way. Shout all you want, but if you excuse me, I have plans for this afternoon."

"With another firewhiskey bottle?" she asked cynically.

I smirked again. "Actually yes. But that's just the first part of my plan. I'm hoping that by five-o-clock this afternoon I'll be passed out in my own vomit. Now wouldn't that be a lovely picture for Mum's photo album?"

Hermione frowned and I could tell she was trying to figure out whether or not I was serious. I wasn't too sure myself – the passing out part didn't sound so bad, it would help me stay numb. However, the other part, about the vomit? Yeah, that didn't sound so appealing. Maybe I could figure out how to skip over that piece of my plan.

After several heavenly seconds of silence, she propped her hands on her hips and fixed me with a furious glare.

Although, truth be told, it wasn't all that terrifying, she just thought it was, mainly because Ron and Harry both cower under it. They probably have a good reason that they haven't shared with me, but until they decide to open up about it, I'm not going to bend over backwards every time she wrinkles her brow and squints her eyes at me. It's against my very nature.

Plus, there's the fact where I rebel against any kind of discipline and establishment. And Hermione's like a Minerva McGonagall in training. Any day now she'll start wearing her hair pulled back in a tight bun and she'll never go back.

It'll be a sad day indeed when that finally does happen. Oh well…

"You know what's really terrible?" she demanded, looking extremely pissed off by this time. Yeah, I was quaking in my dragon-hide boots. Totally. Uh huh. Why wouldn't I be? Doth I protest too much?

"You've just realized you have no sense of fun?" I suggested, propping my feet in said dragon-hide boots up on the desk, amidst a whole bunch of official-looking papers that been there for three months, since March.

Her face immediately went red, and her eyes narrowed even more than they already had. She was such an easy target, she really set herself up for those comments.

"No!" she snarled. "The fact that I have no idea whether that comment about you planning on passing out in your own vomit was a joke or your actual plan."

"That might be because you have no sense of humor either," I told her.

"I HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR!" she screeched. It was amazing that the glass in the windows hadn't shattered by this time. "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S LOST IT!"

Now this was just getting insulting.

I sat up straight, slamming my feet back onto the ground. "I have a sense of humor," I informed her, absolutely affronted.

"Prove it! You haven't created anything for the joke shop for ages!"

"Forgive me," I retorted. "Forgive me, my brother just died, I know that's a tiny thing to be upset about, but I can't help it, I've always been over-emotional."

She stalked over to me and for a split-second I thought she was going to slap me, but instead she knelt down in front of me. She took my hand in hers. "George, no one blames you for what you're going through. We all miss Fred, and we all wish he was still here. But you're completely losing your mind! You're drinking yourself into oblivion almost every day, you just sit around the flat, moping and eating waaay too much ice cream and potato chips, and you haven't been to your house since the funeral. You haven't seen any of your family or any of your friends since we all buried Fred. We miss you George. We feel like we buried you with Fred."

"Well maybe you did," I said, pushing her away and getting to my feet. "Maybe we buried my identity, my heart, my brain, my sense of humor when we lowered Fred's casket into the ground. Because everything I was, I shared with Fred. So when he died, I lost pretty much all of who I was."

"No you didn't," she insisted as she got to her feet, wiping tears away from her eyes, and making me wish I could cry myself. I hadn't shed a tear since the Battle of Hogwarts. "He was a huge part of your life, yes, but he didn't make you who you are, he didn't shape you! George, you have to believe that! You can't just give up! Fred wouldn't have wanted that, he would have wanted you to move on, to laugh, to crack jokes, to get on with the joke shop, to make it the best effing joke shop in the world! Can you imagine what he would say if he knew you were cooped up in a dark flat with the shop locked down, drinking yourself to death?"

"He'd tell me to get my head out of my arse," I replied, and felt a small tugging at my lips; not a smirk, but something else…

She nodded and smiled. "Exactly. That's exactly what he would say."

I heaved a huge sigh, just as the alcohol finally hit me. Shit.

I couldn't have told you how much I had had to drink, but I had gone through a few bottles before Hermione had unexpectedly shown up. It was just part of my daily routine, getting drunk before dinner time, and going through the rest of the evening and night passed out.

I must have been drunk when I had said all those things to her, about my identity being so tied to Fred, because I wasn't one for opening up to anyone else, especially not my little brother's girlfriend. But I had gotten so used to the feeling that I hadn't recognized it, which couldn't be good. Lately the alcohol had been hitting me suddenly and out of the blue, because I wasn't able to tell the different between sober and drunk, and the same was true for today. This did not bode well.

I stumbled and fell against the wall, crumpling to the ground in a ball.

"George!" I heard Hermione cry as she hurried over to me. "Oh my God, how much have you drunk?"

"Seven bottles, give or take a few," I mumbled, and she shook her head disapprovingly, clucking her tongue all the while. I think that might be her favorite sound, because it seems like every time she was around me she made that noise. But maybe I was just lucky.

"Come on," she said, gripping me around my arm. She managed to drag me to my feet – the girl was surprisingly strong, even though she was almost as small as my sister, who practically qualified as a midget – and haul me in the general direction of my bedroom…which I used to share with Fred.

I immediately dug my heels into the carpet.

"George!" she cried out in frustration. "Move!"

"No, just – just bring me over to the couch, I've been sleeping on it anyway."

She made a face. "Why on earth would you want to – ?"

"I just do, all right?"

"Fine," she agreed, still sounding like she was considering checking me into an insane asylum first thing in the morning.

She led me out of the office and towards the sitting room. "Your place is a mess, you know," she informed me.

"Thanks for the update."

"You should really get a maid."

"I'm not working, so how am I supposed to afford it?"

"Good point. Maybe I could suggest to the others – " I was assuming she meant my family – "that we come over here and look after you, clean the place up, just until you're fully functioning again."

The girl was unbelievable. One minute she was screaming at me that I needed to get my arse in gear, and the next she was cooing about how I needed looking after. I had to feel sorry for Ron, imagine being stuck with someone like that. She probably couldn't even decide where she wanted Ron to take her for dinner. Poor bloke.

Sadly, I seemed to have lost control of my tongue, because the next second I had been shoved rather violently onto the black leather couch with her climbing on top of me and shaking me as hard as she possibly could.

"YOU BASTARD!" she was back to screaming at me at the top of her lungs. I must have said what I had been thinking…I had to wonder what the Daily Prophet would be reporting when they learned that I had been murdered by the female and brains of the Golden Trio. God, it would be just my luck that Rita Skeeter was the one who was assigned to the case. She would probably make it sound like I had been hitting on Hermione, and then Ron would end up spitting on my grave and Mum and Dad would be ever so disappointed in me because brothers don't steal brother's girlfriends. And all because I had had one bottle too many.

"You really think Ron's stuck with me? You feel sorry for him because he's dating me? Wha – would you rather he was with the Gryffindor slut, Lavender Brown, still?"

I struggled under her grip, trying to throw her off of me, but it was impossible, I didn't have enough control over my muscles at the moment. But maybe I could steal her wand so she couldn't hex me…

"Of course not!" I tried to assure her. "I remember her, she was already a piece of work when I knew her, he's better off with you!"

"Oh, so he's better off with me, but you still think I'm too pushy and controlling and indecisive to be with him."

"Did I say pushy and controlling?" I asked, frowning, because honestly I couldn't remember.

"It was implied!"

"Well, well, well, who'd have thunk it? The Gryffindor bookworm, the brains of the Golden Trio, the Chosen One's best friend, is insecure. Wow, the Daily Prophet is going to eat this up."

"Don't you – what the hell are you doing?"

My fingers had reached her jeans pocket, where her wand was stowed.

"Thanks," I said with a grin as I pulled it out and quickly shoved it down my shirt.

"You're not a girl, so that's not going to work half as well for you as it would if it was – say – me."

And she reached under my t-shirt and yanked it out.

"You know, I'm pretty sure that could be construed as sexual harassment," I whined. "I wasn't a willing participant."

"Pervert," she snapped as she climbed off of me and pushed her wand down the top of her dress. Now that was just unfair.

"And yet you're the one with the wand in your bra," I retorted.

"Hey, it's my wand, not yours! If it was yours then there would be a problem, but it's not, so it shouldn't matter. Plus, it's my bra, and what goes in it is my business and no one else's!"

"Don't tell me you stuff your bra," I begged. "Because handkerchiefs are so passé."

"You are such a boy."

"Hmm, yeah, that's what the healer said when Mum gave birth to me. I guess not much has changed."

By this time, the room was beginning to spin, and I knew I would be unconscious before long. But I was hoping I could get Hermione out of here before then, because who knew what sort of jinxes she would use on me when I was defenseless and unprepared?

"Hermione, you know, it's going to look pretty suspicious if someone catches you here."

An alarmed expression caught her face. Like I said, so easy.

"What, why?"

"Well, think about it – this entire flat is littered with firewhiskey bottles, enough for two people. And here I am, lying on the couch, looking all too comfy for my own good, and you're not exactly dressed like a sloucher."

She blushed and smoothed out the blue sundress she was wearing. "Oh, thank you. I'm planning on meeting Ron at the Unicorn Room in a little while, but I wasn't sure how long this would take, so I thought I'd better get ready for my date first."

"Oh," I said, trying to focus on one object and not on the spinning room as a whole. "Well you look fantastic. Ron will be blown away."

Her face went an even deeper red but she smiled. "Thanks. You know, I'm not the only one who has issues. You can't decide whether you hate me or like me."

"I like you," I assured her. "Especially when you're dressed like that and have your wand down your top. It's a sexy look, you can really pull it off – " And as luck would have it, that's about the time I passed out.

Merlin, I was in a shitload of trouble.

So what'd you guys think? Was it any good? Did you like it? Did you love it? Did you hate it? Any suggestions or criticisms that you guys might have, I'm more than happy to hear, because I want this story to be the best it can be! Any questions about the story, anything that I might not have explained as well as I should have, I'll try to incorporate the explanations into a later chapter. So let me know what you think of the first chapter, because I absolutely love hearing from you guys, it always puts me in a good mood! =)

Lots and lots of love,

Science-Fantasy93 ;)