TIMER

Summary:

When George Weasley invents a timer that will show the wearer when they'll meet their 'one.' He asks Harry to be the first to get one, knowing that witches and wizards will flock to get one, in hopes of being Harry's one. However, Harry's timer remains stubbornly blank.

Harry glanced up at the owl in his kitchen, eyebrow lifted in question, a letter in his hand, which was raised in the air. "Is this real?" He asked, half expecting a response. After the letter he'd just gotten, he'd be ready to believe just about anything.

Harry had been sitting at his kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading over the most recent newspaper he'd received, when a pale owl flew into his home through an open window, roll of parchment clutched between its sharp talons. The fact that he was getting an owl at all wasn't shocking in itself, considering that he worked as an author now, and he accepts and responds to most letters; after they've gone through his publisher and were deemed safe, of course.

And then he opened the letter.

George Weasley was always up to interesting, curious, and sometimes mad ideas, but this? This was mad, completely bloody mad, stark raving mad in a way that his ideas had never been before.

Apparently, he invented a blasted timer which told the person who wore it when they'd meet the person they fell in love with - provided that the other person had a timer, of course. And if not? The timer would remain blank until their one got a timer. Exactly how that worked was beyond comprehension for Harry, barring the whole magic explanation which he had long since gotten over.

Of course, George wanted him to be the first to get one. He thought it was a stroke of genius and bragged endlessly in his letter about how if Harry got the timer, so would every available witch and wizard in London, if only to see if he or she was Harry's match. Excellent marketing if Harry did say so himself, if a little crazy. George knew how to sell a product, that was for sure.

He only had to ponder it for a moment before he tore off a strip of blank parchment from George's letter, and, with the face of a person who just knew he was signing his death sentence, Harry responded with a simple "When?" Tying the note to the owl's leg, he sent it off.

He knew it was insane for him to agree, but bloody hell! The idea was genius, if done properly, and could get George enough money to get Mrs. Weasley to finally agree to take some. And that was more important than him embarrassing himself.

A slightly uneasy feeling settling in Harry's gut, he stood up and placed his cup in the sink before walking over to a calendar he had on the wall beside the door. He glanced over his schedule for the next few weeks, smiling when he saw it was surprisingly free. All he had was a few hours of writing six days out of every week, and a few public appearances in different areas about every four days. Today was one of the lucky days when he had neither writing nor a panel to get to.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, still smiling, and headed to the upper floors of Grimmauld place, knocking by habit on the wall where Mrs. Black's painting used to be. In the end, the painting's removal had been a simple matter; all he had to do was remove the square of wall that housed her painting, then magically repair it, spell the the chunk of wall with the shrieking frame quiet, and give it to Kreacher. Once he'd figured that out, he managed to get rid of a lot of other stuff, including the house elves' heads. After the war, he systematically cleaned out the entire house, and managed to make quite a few donations to the Department of Mysteries. Of course, despite the fact that they were his donations, they still refused to tell him what the objects actually were, which would have been useful in his writing.

Reaching his room, he undressed as he walked to his closet. Glancing through his assortment of robes and muggle clothes, he pulled on a pair of grey slacks and a white button down shirt, with black and white robes on top. He ran a hand through his hair and peered in a mirror, shrugging when he saw that, like always, his attempt to groom his hair failed. After applying fresh deodorant and cologne, he headed out of his room.

Harry nearly went downstairs, but at the last moment, he turned and went to the bathroom beside his bedroom, absentmindedly pulling out his toothpaste and brush. After an awkward incident when Harry found his breath had been terrible all day, with no one telling him, he tried to make it a habit to always have fresh breath. Especially after coffee.

Now properly dressed and clean, Harry jogged downstairs and, as predicted, a few minutes later an owl flew through the window he'd added a year or so ago in his kitchen. Allowing the owl to perch on his shoulder, he untied the letter from it's claws and handed it a knut. He ignored the twisting feeling in his stomach, he opened the letter and saw the only thing written was the word "Now?"

So, with a grimace, he stepped outside and apparated to Diagon Alley.

After a moment of disorientation and dizziness, he stepped out from the alleyway and into George's shop. Harry's eyes widened as he took in the ever present hustle and bustle of the colorful store, glancing around before refocusing. Weasley Wizarding Wheezes had always been popular and now, it could be said that it's net worth was greater than Zonko's, which pleased George to no end. The man had even expanded, putting a few smaller shops in other popular wizarding locations, which he untrusted to close friends. His eyes scanned over people, fake wands, love potions, and faux candy in search of George.

Finally glimpsing him, he pushed his way through the crowd of people browsing through the isles, lifting a hand in acknowledgement when he heard an occasional person gasp "Harry Potter?" or call out a casual "Heya, Harry!"

When Harry reached George, he threw an arm around the man's shoulders and grinned up at him. "So, where do we do this?"

George turned to him with a lopsided smile. "Harry! Didn't expect you so quick, did I? Thought you would sulk and generally try to prolong the inevitable until I hunted you down and forced you to do this."

Harry's mouth opened and a few unintelligible sounds escaped. "I thought about it," he admitted with a slight shrug as he regained his wits. "Now, back to my question, yeah?"

George just smirked in reply, leading him to a small back room and telling him to sit on a squashy chair in the corner. The room was uninteresting, with a few chairs and two desks, as well as a ton of clutter. George pulled out his wand and shuffled through a drawer in the desk pressed against the far wall. After a moment or rummaging, he pulled out a thin strip of plastic that looked just long enough to loop around his wrist.

With a humm, he turned to Harry and gestured for his wrist. "Alright, mate, this is going to fasten itself to your skin, rather tightly, for a day or so, just to get a grip on your magical siggy, and other such stuff you wouldn't understand." Harry rolled his eyes at this. Sometimes, it seemed George forgot Harry was considered considered an extremely skilled magician. "It'll loosen up later, just enough so it can slide a few inches around your arm, but not actually come off. It's going to stay blank until your match gets hers—his? Then it'll start a countdown to the day you'll meet your one. Savvy?" As George spoke, he folded the plastic around his right wrist so that the ends touched, and with a murmured "maniacerbalgia!" and a flick of his wand, the plastic warped.

Harry jumped in shock as the plastic tightened around his wrist with an instantaneous burning sensation on his skin. He pulled his wrist up to eye level, gritting his teeth as he eyed the skin around the timer, noticing the way it quickly got red and raw. He winced, his upper lip curling as he felt a wave of heat run through his wrist. "Bloody hell, George, you didn't say it would be like this! You said it was going to be a bit tight! My skin is blistering!" He practically snarled, lifting his hand and shoved it in George's face to make sure he saw just exactly how bad it was.

With widened eyes and a grimace, George eyed the quickly blistering skin on Harry's wrist, careful not to touch it. "I didn't see that coming," he muttered. "You might want to see a healer real quick. I can't do anything for that. In the meantime, I need to figure out how to prevent that before my appointment with my next customer. Get better soon, yeah? I can't let it be known that my first customer was injured from the timer."

Harry groaned and smacked his left hand to his forehead. "You idiot, George," he said with a sigh, wrapping his left hand around his right wrist. He stood to walk out of the room, and out of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes before apparating to St Mungos.

Within minutes, he had a swarm of healers looking over his hand, clicking their tongues against the roofs of their mouths and tsk-ing, seeming concerned and disapproving at the same time. When Harry refused point blank to take of the timer, one healer pursed her lips and told him they couldn't work with it there. The only thing they could do was recommend he find an adept potions master, and get a potion made to advance healing so he could move onto the next stage of the spell, which was the actual tracking of his soul mate.

The healers exchanged significant looks at that, and they decided unanimously that he needed to see their potion master. And as luck would have it, their potion master was Draco bloody Malfoy, AKA, Ferret Face.

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