No one was quite sure how it happened. One particularly normal day, the Weasleys all gathered for dinner on Sunday and Mrs. Weasley had asked how George was doing with the recent reopening of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and the remodeling of his flat. He then stated plainly, "Granger's moved in."

He said nothing after that, despite every pair of eyes snapping to his face, while he continued to ladle some mashed potatoes onto his plate. All clatter and talking had screeched to a halt and the only sound was the thick, wet plop of the buttery starch landing on worn china. George looked up.

"What?"

Suddenly, the table seemed to spring in motion, fast-forwarding through all the actions and words that had been held at bay by shock.

"What?!" "Why?" "When did she get back—" "With George?" "-thought you weren't looking for a flatmate-" "You'd think she'd tell a bloke when-" "How long?" And of course, the ever present standby: "You're joking!"

George just let these comments and questions slide off his back as he continued eating, getting very little thrill out of his family's general confusion. If he had his twin by his side, he might've even teased them all and thrown in some sly comments about how she had come to him before any of the rest of the family.

But his twin wasn't there and while he would be glad to pull a prank, he only wanted to pull them with products and not about something so important to his family.

Honestly, it had been a stroke of pure dumb luck, seeing Hermione. He'd been wandering around Muggle London, looking for inspiration and somewhere to eat and drink for the night where no one would ask him about Fred, when he saw her.

Hermione had been sitting on a bench staring into space. Without thinking about it, George walked over and sat next to her, hands stuffed in his pockets. She didn't look at him or even acknowledge his presence until he sighed, a little irritated that he was being ignored.

"Granger."

As the last syllable escaped his lips, he was startled to see her unblinking eyes glass over. Her lips pressed into a tight line and she continued to stare directly ahead.

He uncurled a hand from inside his pocket and touched her elbow, tentatively, "Hermione…"

She released a strangled breath and he enclosed her elbow in his hand, pulling the young woman to her feet. As he led her to the bar he had scoped out on his walk, she half-sobbed, half-questioned, "George..?"

"Yes, Hermione, it's George. Let's get some libations in you and we'll talk out whatever's got you in a state."

George wasn't going to tell his family the exact circumstances that had led to Hermione staying with him in his flat; the details were a little fuzzy around the edges for the two of them anyway. Anything about Hermione's personal life and how she had suddenly returned after a year and a half's absence with nary a word was her story to tell, if she even deigned to tell it.

"She moved in about a week and a half ago. I don't know why she hasn't said anything to anyone, but it's her choice. No, we aren't going to kill each other. She needed a place to stay, so I offered. It's fine by me. And no, I am most certainly not joking."

Several months passed and the family stopped bringing it up every time he came to Sunday dinner. They'd even stopped pestering Hermione once she had started showing up as well. In an odd twist of fate, Hermione Granger, brightest witch her age and decorated war hero, had been denied a job at the Ministry because she lacked scores for her NEWTs and wanted to stay well away from the Aurors' office. Since her return, the Weasleys had noticed a lack of ambition from the woman, but no one commented on it.

Except George.

After one Sunday evening spent skirting around the topics of everyone's work week, George turned to Hermione as she went to hang her coat on the hook by the door.

"You know, you should come work in the shop."

She merely raised an eyebrow. "You think someone who tried to ban your items should now try to sell them?"

He raised one at her in return as he followed her into the kitchen. "Think of it as a way to do some creative magic, a… research job, so to speak."

She poured herself some tea and hummed noncommittally to herself. "Do you think you'd be alright with an 'uneducated Muggleborn witch' working for you?"

He felt a smile quirk onto his face, before tamping it down. It was a line she had gotten fed many times in her uninspired quest for a job. "Well, it's fine by me."

Hermione working in the small backroom of the shop was more than fine by George. Her impressive spellwork filled in the gaps left by the absence of Fred whose transfiguration was always a fair bit better than his own. They worked together nicely on the potions needed for the varied candies, though he did find that Hermione was rather hopeless at baking. The first month of her gainful employment went by swimmingly.

In fact, everything was going so smoothly for George at the shop and then in the flat, that he barely noticed how much Hermione has seeped into his life.

It was a Tuesday afternoon and they'd just closed shop when George heard the light footfalls of his flatmate. Sprawled on the couch as he was, he watched her step carefully onto the armchair catty-corner from him, curling her legs under her. She was cradling a cup of cocoa and had placed one by his head on the end table. They sat like that in comfortable silence for a while, before George could see a question twisting its way up and out of Hermione's mouth.

"George?"

"Hmm?"

"Why don't you ever go out?"

He furrowed his brow. "I do go out. I go out with you and with Lee and Oliver." He took a long sip of the chocolate drink before looking over at her with some wry amusement. "In fact, I believe the last time I went out, you got so sloshed that I had to carry you home for fear that Side-Along would ruin my shoes."

To her credit, Hermione only snorted lightly, but it was enough to make George grin into his mug. "It certainly wasn't my idea to go on a bender, but who am I to say no? And stop changing the subject."

"I'm not. We were talking about me going out, with you, mind, and how utterly pissed you can get."

"Then I'll say it plainly, shall I? Why don't you ever go out with a girl?"

George paused, mid-sip. He turned to look at her and found her brown eyes staring him down. Gently, he righted himself on the couch and set aside his orange mug.

"I suppose I just stopped looking. Didn't really feel like it, to be honest." Hermione relaxed back into the arm chair as though she hadn't realized she was even tense. "Is this going to be one of our serious, non-work related conversations?"

"Could be. I'm feeling in a rare sharing mood." She sank back further into the maroon cushions, pressing the warm mug against her sternum comfortably. George folded his hands in front of him and leaned forward.

"Well, answer me this then. Whatever happened between you and ickle Ronnie? He followed you like a lost puppy, but when you came back, you both kind of ignored each other."

Hermione winced. "Ah, that. It was a spur of the moment thing, during the Battle. Then afterwards, before I left, I just felt strained and stressed. Everyone expected so much of us as a couple, but…"

"But you weren't really into it."

She tilted her head, a cross between a smile and a grimace on her face.

"I suppose. Ronald was not really my type in the end."

"I figured as much. He didn't have enough conviction for you." She blinked and widened her eyes, brows arching.

"Oh? And what makes you say that?"

"You're not the type of bird to remain with a guy who's too shy, too afraid to say he'll give his heart to you forever." He shrugged as he leaned back and crossed an ankle over his knee. "You seem like a girl that wants a lifetime partner instead of a fling."

Her mildly affronted self slunk back into the creases of her chair, slinging her legs over the arm.

"That's true enough. After what I've gone through, I don't think I could handle any more heart break." George watched as her eyes took on that glassy quality he remembered from when they'd met again in Muggle London.

They had been drinking something far more potent than hot cocoa then and after a while of sitting in silence, her dam had suddenly burst. The story of how she had struggled to trace her parents to Melbourne, Australia tumbled and tripped out of her mouth. Uncovering the details of their stay in Australia, she consequentially learned that several months of being in their memory-altered state had somehow caused the former Grangers to divorce. She traced her father's travels back to England and learned that he has been blindsided by a bus while driving to his dental practice and killed instantly. Her mother, once Hermione found her after several months of dead ends with wrong surnames, had lead to an awful discovery.

"I found her, living in a dodgy little flat outside Trenton, New Jersey. I went to talk to her, but—she—I—George, she didn't know me! The memory charm wasn't reversing! I tried everything and she just called me a—a freak! Told me to get out. I tried explaining and telling her who I was, but nothing was triggered, no memories, no inklings! Nothing!" She had fallen onto her arms onto the bar top and George had tentatively wrapped an arm around the drunken girl, face close so he could hear her broken speech. "I… I had to obliviate her again… If she couldn't remember who I was… she couldn't remember I was a witch."

So yes, George knew exactly what Hermione meant when she mentioned past heart break. And if he was honest with himself, he had the same problem. Clearing his throat to unblock the feeling that had arisen in his chest, he began to talk quietly.

"In the past, back before the war, I'd try hard to commit to the birds I dated, but it never got far. Somehow, it always seemed to fall apart." He slowly twisted the now empty cocoa mug on the end table. Hermione's ear was tilted his way so he figured she was listening. "The thing about being a twin is that you're not your own person. That was the test for us."

"Test?" She turned to look at him from the corner of her eyes. She knew who 'us' was, smart girl.

"We'd switch, you know? We wanted people to see us for who we were as people, but girls only ever saw us as a set. It was no skin off their backs if they called us the other's name."

"Then they weren't worth your time and you found out before it could really hurt you." She moved to get up and picked up his mug. As she straightened to continue to the kitchen, he grabbed her wrist lightly. Barely even startled, she looked down into his blue eyes. "George?"

"I don't think… I mean to say… A lot of things are harder now that Fred isn't here, but I'm happy now, content. I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad, too, George. You've done so much for me, sheltering my unemployed self and then proceeding to give me a job. I can't thank you enough for your help and support." Their serious mood was beginning to lift as he absent mindedly ran a thumb along her forearm, catching on the edge of the scarred letters burned there. As she tried to pull away from his grasp at the contact, he impishly pulled her towards him.

"Well, I'm just saying its fine by me if you never leave."

A/N: This is where I initially planned on the story ending, so you won't be missing much by not reading the next chapter. However, if you want a slightly more conclusive ending (this one is rather open-ended), read on. Please review so I can have some feedback on my writing!

~zabeth