CHAPTER ONE
The Closeout Sale
He had never seen Diagon Alley so colourful before. Perhaps he had been too young back when the tension of war was still at bay, or maybe the horrors of the previous year had been engraved over his earlier memories, but it was a confirmed fact that the shop owners had took it upon themselves to make the First Christmas After The War an unforgettable event.
Not that anyone would have considered the date easy to forget, in any case. Not when there were people missing at the tables all over England. But after seven months of tears, it seemed that the losses had already been mourned enough.
Diagon Alley, Ron decided, looked every bit like a gigantic snow globe with its white-coated rooftops and the shop-windows twinkling in commercial delight. The street seemed to be up and running, at an hour when every other address in London would still be soundly asleep. That was something he couldn't remember having seen before, either. He wondered what it would be like when the majority of the shops opened and the gift-hunting crowds arrived.
The glamours put on the window decorations were able to mesmerise even Ron's trained eyes, so used to magic since he was born; and yet, they didn't seem strong enough to distract his girlfriend's perseverant steps, nor did they soften the slight frown on her face.
He knew Hermione – who walked by his side, hand in his – had had even less chances of seeing Diagon Alley that lively. When she met that place and him, back in their first year, things were already getting complicated to wizard folk. He-Who-Must-Not—Voldemort, he forced himself to think – might have been still a ghost, but his followers could detect his dark aura in the air. They, Hermione and him, had been too young to notice back then (and even so they did notice anyway).
It was still funny, he wondered, to think of Hermione as his girlfriend. Especially with their relationship status having changed the way it had, without much fuss: they behaved around each other just like before, except the frequency of their arguments had decreased considerably and there was snogging involved, now. Apart from that, she was still Hermione – and as much as he wanted her to stay that way (and as much as he loved the fact that he could snog her senseless nowadays), there was a residual feeling of uneasiness around her, of being more worried than before about her opinions on him, of wanting to please her more; those feelings, he knew, were strongly related to the fact that she was less than pleased with him at the moment and that her opinions on him had been particularly low since the day she discovered (no, the day he told her) his plans.
And if only it were just that; if only it were something strictly between the two of them, then he would be sure it was just a matter of getting adjusted to the idea of being with each other, and time alone would make it right. But there was also the pressure, or what he believed was pressure, from his mother, who apparently had her mind fixated on compensating for the loss of one son with… well, the announcement of Fleur's pregnancy had clearly sent Mum over the edge, Ron thought.
The movement on the streets grew steadily, the early risers attracted by the sound of shop doors being pulled open. The people would stare at him and Hermione when they passed by, most of them not even trying to make it seem like an accidental glimpse in their general direction. He wondered whether they were looking at their joined gloved hands, whether the gesture could possibly be considered improper from any angle but, surrounded by promises of infinite happiness as they were, he couldn't see how holding his girlfriend's hand would offend someone. He then dared to steal a glance over his right shoulder, to make sure no body parts of Harry were showing under the Invisibility Cloak. Not seeing anything, he could only assume people were, indeed, looking at him and Hermione – and that was when he realised (because even after seven months of that routine he often forgot) that the two of them were war heroes too, like Harry, even though with less of a celebrity status than him.
They had found out right after the battle at Hogwarts – a week or two at the most, barely the time for most people to leave St. Mungo's – that walking on the streets had become an impossible feat for The Boy Who Lived. When before there had been fear for his safety, what with Death Eaters and You-Kn—Voldemort out there to catch him, now there was only the very practical problem of dealing with admirers. Harry had concluded that going back to his last year of school would be quite pointless; he worked with Kingsley now, trying to help him build a decent government for wizard folk, and it was a job requirement to keep good public relations. Luckily there was the Cloak for whenever he needed to go out and wasn't in the mood for shaking hands and smiling.
From Hermione, of course, nobody had expected less than an obsession with taking her N.E.W.T.s, which was exactly how she had reacted as soon as it became clear that classes would return normally, or as close to normal as the remaining students and parents were willing to have it. Hogwarts was emptier, Hermione would tell him and Harry, because even if most children survived the battle, their families were still unsure about school security. "Barely twenty-five first-years in all four houses," she would say, "and they don't look fascinated as we did back in our time, they look terrified..."
As for Ron, he stood in the middle: not as hungry for academic achievement as Hermione, neither as comfortable as Harry with the notion of entering the job market. There had been offers from the Ministry – having Dad and Harry and Kingsley and even Percy there certainly helped – but Ron wanted to be able to find himself a job without them having to interfere. Besides, he felt he was too green for the whole becoming-an-adult process. Yes, he had been involved in the war, he had fought for his life in quite a few occasions, he had seen death far too much and far too close for his taste; but all that had granted him was a very specific kind of maturity. Living in a peaceful world was another thing.
Or at least that had been what he had told Mum when he decided not to go back to Hogwarts with Hermione. It hadn't been a lie, in all.
"We're here," Hermione announced quietly, halting in front of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes' closed doors. Ron stepped ahead to bang on them; it was his brother's shop, so he should do the honours. The door, unlocked, gave way under his insistent fist.
Ron held the door open and gestured for Hermione to enter, finally letting go of her hand. He pretended to stare back at a little girl on the other side of the street while Harry passed invisibly by him and stepped into the room; Ron followed, closing the door behind him. The shop was much warmer than outside, though it was humid from staying closed for too long. Looking at the floor as they walked, so as not to tumble over any boxes or packages, the trio went after the noises that came from the stock room.
"Hey there, Ron, Hermione. Hey there too, Harry," greeted George (Harry was just coming out from under the Cloak when he turned to the door). "Glad to see you three, I'm already up to my remaining ear in work."
George was thinner and a tad shabbier, but otherwise he seemed fine. In fact, he seemed finer than the people who had to live around him. Ron, for instance: whenever he'd look at his brother now, he would have the impression of witnessing a grave case of splinching, and it was not just because of the missing ear.
(Ron had already had his share of splinches, ranging from half an eyebrow to a good part of an arm left behind. It was definitely not the kind of experience one would be willing to watch happen.)
"While you lot were at home eating porridge and sitting on your lazy bums, I did some rough Scourgifying of the place," George said, carrying a large rattling box to the front of the shop, "but you know what they say. It's in the details," he continued, coming back to the stock room and turning to the three of them. "Which of you's better at cleaning spells?"
Three pairs of eyes rested their gazes on Hermione, who raised one sceptical eyebrow silently. "Fine," nodded George, "you check all the corners of that place, Hermione. I'm sure you'll have lots of fun. You two," he turned to the boys, "we'll put all this stuff on the shelves right after she's done with them. And might I ask where our favourite decorator is?"
"Ginny stayed at The Burrow," answered Harry, failing to raise a box from the floor. "What did you put in this one? Leaden cauldrons?"
"Missing Quidditch practices, are we? And these are Premium Dungbombs. You can use your wand, but promise me you won't drop it, or else Ron and I say goodbye to the tanned Veelas." Before Harry could levitate the box out of the room, they heard a noise from the other side of the curtains that sounded suspiciously like Hermione blowing up something small. "Oi, I asked you to clean things, not to make them worse…" Ron grabbed two smaller, rectangular packages wrapped with Spellotape, then followed Harry and George into the front room of the shop.
Without its products on display, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes seemed to be stripped of its soul, just another store among the many in Diagon Alley. Ron could see why George hadn't been very enthusiastic about coming back here and setting up sales again: looking at the bare shelves was depressing enough.
"These go where?", he asked the older redhead.
"Leave it on the counter, I'll see if it's safe to open them later. You were saying, Harry…?"
"She wanted to come, she really did," Harry had already left the Premium Dungbombs aside and was coming back now with a large pink package labelled WONDERWITCH - LATEST. "But someone had to try and distract your mum for a while, so we drew straws. I offered to stay in her place, but she said it was family business and that I'd help more here anyway." Ron knew, and completely agreed with her, that one of the reasons Ginny hadn't accepted Harry's offer was that she thought he needed a chance to go out without having the Ministry in mind.
"So Mum hasn't recovered from the news yet, huh?" George pondered with some amusement, scratching his chin and trying to remember where each product line went on the shelves. Hermione, who had been castingScourgifies at a rather resistant cobweb, grumbled something unintelligible under her breath.
"Recovered? She's positively mad," Ron commented, his arms loaded with things from the back of the shop. It was only his second trip and his back was starting to ache; he missed Quidditch, indeed. "D'you reckon she'll forgive us till Christmas night?"
George's face lit with a clever memory as he scanned the shop. "The Hangman—yes, here, it'll need some space—Harry, put those on the other side, we'll need to put the Reusable Hangman here." He nodded to himself and clicked his tongue. "As for Mum, Ronnie, I'd say Christmas is a bit early, but I'm sure she'll love us again by the time we leave. Whoa, careful!"
George helped Harry with the boxes of Reusable Hangmen and the larger, demonstration set of gallows. The demo hangman was perched atop of his shoulder, giving wooden blows to his jaw. Harry put him on a tall shelf and rubbed his face. "So, you scheduled a date already?"
"Almost. We're leaving on the last days of February – the first week of March, at most. Our cousin's setting up the precise date for us. We don't want to get there too early; it's not like we can spend much with accommodation, even if we do have family there." While he talked, Hermione grunted again, this time louder and with a shake of her head. "What?"
"I said of course she's mad at you and Ron," she answered, assuming a typical Hermione stance with crossed arms and knitted eyebrows. "Your mother has been through a lot lately."
"Haven't we all? We lost a brother, too," said George, and it sounded pained and matter-of-fact at the same time. (Ron believed he would never understand completely his brother's coping process. Merlin, he hardly understood his own.)
"It's not the same—but I'm not going into that. It's not a question of who's suffering more. But you should be more considerate to your mother, if not for the simple fact that she is your mother, at least because in a matter of months she buried a son, found out she's having a grandchild and found out her two younger boys will spend a whole year an ocean away from her. And that if we consider she's got over having a son attacked by a werewolf, and her husband and her only daughter almost killed by a giant snake."
"But we do—" Ron started, but George cut in. "We know all that better than you do," he said with uncharacteristic venom, "but it's funny that you're defending our mother's position so much, Hermione. I'd even assume you don't want us to go. Of course, you'd rather keep your boyfriend around, wouldn't you, lest some other girl—"
But before he was finished, she had already stormed out to the stock room.
Ron and George stared at each other.
"You shouldn't have said—"
"She started it when she—"
"Ron," Harry interrupted diplomatically, "don't you think you should..." he finished the phrase jerking his head in the stock room's direction. Ron had read Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches enough times to understand the gesture; in fact, Harry didn't even need to have done it.
She wasn't crying when he entered the stock room, but he could see she was holding on so bravely that Gryffindor himself would have been proud. He approached her warily, not intending to upset her more.
"George shouldn't have told you those things," he started. (One of the rules in Twelve Fail-Safe Ways was that the first assumption should always be that it wasn't her fault.)
"I shouldn't have mentioned…"
She stopped herself with a sniffle.
"It's alright," said Ron, putting a hand on her shoulder. She didn't object, so he gave her a little squeeze and kept it there. "You'd said you were ok with the trip."
Hermione nodded. "I am, really. I swear I'm happy for you—I'm really happy that you want to finish your studies, and I know that you and your brothers have always wanted to go abroad. I remember that time when you visited Bill in Egypt. I just…" She took a shaky breath. Ron gestured for her to go on, the hand on her shoulder moving to her hair. "I just wish we didn't have to stay away from each other for so long. An year is a whole lot of time, isn't it?"
He was not going to tell her that, even though one year was indeed a long time, he thought it would be healthy for them to spend some time apart. Not that he didn't like being with her, it was quite the opposite, but he couldn't remember a time when they weren't together (not counting that time during the war, when he was on his own and spent every minute of the day wondering whether she and Harry were still alive). So, since he was not going to tell her that, and since he couldn't tell her that he'd suddenly given up on the trip either, he opted for another Twelve Fail-Safe Ways recommendation: when in doubt, hold her.
Hermione sobbed quietly against his shoulder for a short moment while he played with her bushy strands and smelled her perfume (it was the same one he had bought her once, during their fifth year). When she found her composure again, mumbling an almost inaudible "I'm so silly", he didn't hold back the impulse of catching her lips between his.
The kiss would have gone on for longer, if they hadn't been interrupted by someone cleaning his throat by the entrance of the room. "Oi," said George with an apologetical smile, "I'll understand if you don't want to help me anymore, Hermione, but you really shouldn't stop me from exploiting my brother."
After that, work went without interruptions, except for a Fanged Frisbee accidentally set free by Ron. Before they knew it, the doors were opened to the public; their noise and the large sign announcing CLOSEOUT SALE at the front of the shop had already attracted a crowd to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. People were anxious for its comeback; during the previous months, George had kept on operating by owl order, but few had felt comfortable with ordering things from him after Fred's death. Now, seeing his bright salesman smile and the shelves filled to the brims, everyone realised it was only logical that if the shop had to go, it would go with a bang.
(Ron would always remember when the twins left Hogwarts in his fifth year. He was actually surprised that some people expected anything less from them.)
"It's not really the end, in fact," George dutifully explained to the customers gathered around him, avid for information on the future of his products. "We, as in myself and Fred, had already planned to travel around for some time to study and experiment with new materials. You know how it is, you tell a joke too many times, it stops being funny. But before you know it, we'll be back bringing a whole lot of new stuff for your trickster needs—we, as in myself and whichever other Weasley is available."
And people would ignore the tragic meaning behind his words – no, it was not that they ignored it; it was only that the magic of the twins defied death and made everyone find reasons to laugh again.
The goods, of course, sold like bottles of concentrated Felix Felicis. People were not only buying Christmas gifts: from the number of items they were taking home, it was quite clear that they were storing for the following year. Harry had even suspected that some might try to copy the products and open their own shop, but George argued that they could copy all they wanted: everybody knew where it had come from, and they could expect to find original, never before seen material once he were back in the business.
The intense movement in the shop also helped to dissipate the memory of the argument with Hermione. She was too distracted with checking prices and wrapping gifts to remember that she was supposed to be angry at the Weasley brothers. It was good for Ron, who used every opportunity he got to smile at her or rub his arm against hers, as if by accident. He even dared to steal a few kisses in some of their trips to the stock room, and she looked rather satisfied.
The coming-and-going of people went on for the rest of the day. By the time the last lucky customer left taking with him the very last Premium Dungbomb, it was already well into the night. They closed the doors with a collective sigh, the four of them flopping into stalls and upside-down boxes.
Earlier in the evening, Hermione had left Diagon Alley for a moment to use the telephone (or fellytone, whatever the name was) and tell her parents not to worry, that she would be late but everything was fine. She now rested her swollen feet up an empty box of WonderWitch products, eyelids heavy, one arm lazily stretched out to try and reach for Ron's hand. Harry's eyes were red from the flashes, and he continuously cracked the fingers of his writing hand.
It wasn't exactly a shock when Ron turned to his brother and found the salesman smile gone, replaced with a paradoxical expression of fatigue and relief, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. There, surrounded again by empty shelves, George looked older than he actually was.
"Now what?", said Ron, willing to break the heavy silence.
"Now we count the galleons," answered George raising his eyebrows, "and tomorrow we go shopping."