Do you know how hard it is to come up with a title? And chapters? Very. Short first chapter - think of it as an extended summary.
Disclaimer: All the original characters belong to the wonderful imagination of a certain JK Rowling. OC's and this plot are from me.
Enjoy!
Mending Broken Souls: Five Years Later
High pitched giggling and drunken slurs cut through the crisp night air as the entwined figures stumbled out of the excited pub and down the Alley, both with one destination in mind. Of course, if either were in their right mind they could have easily apparated there, but since they weren't, they held onto each other firmly, hands wandering where they would not dare to during the day in public view, and staggered to 93 Diagon Alley.
Diagon Alley was a colourful wonderland during the day, with bustling shops bursting to the brim with customers; excited children running wild and free, their fretful parents never too far behind; music of laughter and playful bantering sparking the air with excited energy; stray animals scurrying through busy legs away from the messy hands of toddlers who could not hold their ice cream.
Yes, Diagon Alley was an impressive sight, even to wizards. The popular street hidden from muggle eyes was the heart of all social activity in the wizarding world. And why wouldn't it be? Old and new shops flourished after the war, built up from nothing and now reaching the high heavens. Street performers had even taken to entertaining curious eyes, evolving muggle circus clowns to a whole new level with their clever transfiguration and charms, and even advertising the latest from the famous joke shop.
And then there was the Diagon Alley few people witnessed.
When the sun bid farewell and the moon awoke the Alley was left with an eerie silence broken by pounding music blasting out of clubs. Diagon Alley was home to two new clubs, its neon lights flashing high and low and all around in the darkness, illuminating shadowed corners filled with masked figures away from the wandering eyes of patrolling aurors in Knockturn Alley. The odd disfigured beggar cackling to the moon, crouched on the floor mumbling incoherently and staring down anyone who dared to pass. Ugly, dismembered strays shrieking into spilling bins for scraps.
The nightlife was never consistent, however. Some days the ugly beggars and strays found shelter for the night; the shifty dealers drifted to Hogsmeade to avoid suspicious aurors; or the clubs had a quiet night on a weeknight and the music wasn't so loud or the lights so bright.
But the most common scene which repeated itself every night – or rather most nights…either way it occurred a lot – was the man stumbling out of The Leaky Cauldron, sometimes with a woman on his arm, sometimes without; sometimes even with another man dragging him through the streets to the safety of the famous Diagon Alley store, still thriving with one tanked owner. One. For the other had died tragically five years ago.
And George Weasley never recovered. Only coped.
To his credit, he had considerably sobered from the early days of his depression and mourning, no longer wasting away his days deep inside a strange woman or a bottle of the sharpest firewhiskey. His family supported him as much as was possible, bearing in mind they too had lost a brother, a son. But their faces betrayed their thoughts, and George couldn't deal with that. Where their faces leaked out the truth, George was suddenly brought back to the present, to what life was, how it changed and how it would never be again. And he couldn't have that.
So: distractions.
And that was how he'd spent many a night since the loss of his twin, his other half. Very rarely was he seen alone; he would arrive with a brother or two, he would spend the night brooding, drinking himself dull until he'd be so blinded he would gladly accept the company of the hungry stares that trained on him as soon as he stepped foot into the lively pub. If he were intoxicated enough, which many of the ladies made sure of, he would bed them at his flat. Always at his flat; that never left his mind. If this were to fail, a rough shove in his sour mood would send them away – far enough to give him some breathing space that was. These were the distractions that worked the most, he found.
But tonight her plan didn't fail. And she was well on her way to shag George Weasley.
