The Weasley twins were first introduced to him in a puff of smoke and a lot of laughter, and Lee had rolled his eyes at their antics and tucked his nose back into his book.
Oh, how times have changed.
He started commentating when they'd gotten on the team- Professor McGonagall had her doubts, but with Tonks graduated and nobody else willing, she told him that he at least talked fast enough for it. Lee, for his part, wasn't keen on being left out again because the twins got onto the team, so he learned Quidditch moves and terminology and the names of the Slytherin players and how to distinguish between them when they were all white and athletic and aggressive.
"Frankly, they're not the better-looking team," he said into the mic, and that was the first "Jordan!" of a long six year tradition.
"Just a thought, professor- and the Quaffle is tossed, game on!"
They threw a party that night in the Common Room- it was the first time that Fred and George came back at a late hour laden with sweets and drinks. It was not the first time Lee had been left out of the adventure.
"How'd you do it?" he asked, and they smiled. Lee, by then, could tell them apart, but just then they were identical in glee.
"Magic, Lee," said Fred, and George glanced sideways at him.
Lee waited for them to continue, but they didn't. "Okay," he said. "Cool! That's cool."
·•·
It wasn't surprising, of course, in their sixth year when they got aging potion without him, and really, he understood completely. They only needed a couple of drops, their birthday was in April. His was in August. At least he didn't end up with a beard.
But they threw some wicked parties that year, the three of them.
Lee has always been the extra one; he wondered if it was better to be involved to a small extent, or not at all. He decided it probably was. Better to have an idea of what was happening, rather than being caught without answers at all.
So he Vanished the vomit and blood, revived them when they fainted, and helped with testing, and when the twins set off fireworks, he smiled and shook his head and folded his arms. He had never expected much, other than this.
"Did you know they were gonna do this?" asked a sixth year, and he shook his head, still staring in wonder as the fireworks chased Filch past.
"I had no idea," he admitted. In truth, he hadn't even known they'd been developing them.
He wasn't surprised when they left the school, either, chain still swinging behind George's broom and swamp sprawling across the floor in their wake. They had attended Hogwarts in the most auspicious manner. It was only suitable that they leave that way.
And of course it was Lee trailing in their wake, levitating Nifflers into Umbridge's office and wondering if he was living up to their example. He doubted so.
·•·
He'd grown up the middle child, like the twins. His sisters were twelve and fourteen when he was born, and his brother was born when he was ten. To say they weren't close would be an understatement.
He supposed he'd been asking for it, this life as the extra, when he'd become best friends with two brothers who were even closer than his sisters were. But he wondered sometimes whether he'd have been happier with just a best friend. Someone who he knew he was on equal level with.
But he didn't choose that, and so here he was, knocking on the door to the flat over the joke shop wondering when they'd open it already.
"Lee!" said Fred when he answered the door. "Fancy seeing you, old chap-"
"Yeah, yeah," said Lee, following Fred inside. The door shut behind them. "What a shocker, day off and I still turn up here-"
Fred chortled and ushered him into the dining-sitting-kitchen room. There was a desk/dining table/storage unit/counter there in the middle, where George was currently sitting filling out the bills.
"Lee!" he said, his face brightening momentarily. "Look at this, Fred is making me do the papers when I'm injured-"
"I did them last month," interrupted Fred, and sent Lee a look of deep suffering. "He's been injured for a month, he should be better now."
"Ha," said Lee, sitting down opposite George. "I've been thinking-"
"Oh no," said Fred, flicking his wand at the chair under the tall cabinet (it was serving as a stepstool) and sitting down next to George. "Do tell, then-"
"News," said Lee, and he dropped that morning's Prophet on the table. "The Prophet's all shite, obviously, but nobody will trust Xeno Lovegood with their news or money."
"Right," said George. "And we, three humble joke store employees, are going to-"
"We're going to get the word out," said Lee, and he put his notebook, covered in scribbles of ideas and doodled caricatures of various people he hated, into the middle of the table. "I call this plan 'Potter's Watchdog'."
"No offence, mate, that's a shitty name," said Fred. "Why are we dogs?"
"Because nobody will want to hunt and kill a puppy," said George, brandishing his quill at Fred.
"Yeah, because that went so well with Sirius," replied Fred.
"Potter Watch," said Lee, mostly to interrupt their bickering. "It was my second choice."
Fred and George glanced at each other.
"That's good."
"We can work with that."
·•·
Of course, when you're the main anchor of an illegal news radio programme, you have to expect that the Death Eaters will come knocking. Lee's family was scattered, at the moment, but he put his mother and brother into hiding with the Order. His sisters wouldn't be in trouble- Anna had moved to Canada last year, and May was married to someone rich and snobby in Scotland.
And so his loose ends were all tied up by the time the Death Eaters came. What had become Potterwatch was based out of the flat over the store- everything was centralized and consolidated into a box so that they could Apparate the equipment easily, everyone had memorised the list of locations to Apparate to, and frankly, everyone was prepared for it when it did happen.
They only had Remus as a guest star just then- Kingsley had offered, but he was still employed and they didn't want to make him leave his job. They were sitting in the flat when there was a pounding on the door.
"George," said Fred, quietly, and George spun on his heel, Disapparating their equipment with a loud crack.
"Well," said Fred, and he looked over at Lee. "I guess this is goodbye to the old place."
Lee didn't have anything to offer, so he nodded instead, and Fred's mournful expression, solemn and private even when the Death Eaters seemed to be trying to blast the door out of the way, changed abruptly into a small grin.
"Good thing it's our place," he said, and Lee didn't even have time to ask what he meant before Fred smacked one hand on the wall. "House, we're going down. You know what that means. Lee-"
Lee grabbed Fred's arm. "May I ask-"
"When we get there," said Fred, and they Disapparate.
"We rigged it," explained George. "They'd have to get through toxic gas Decoy Detonators and some of the worst of our firecrackers before they even make it into the flat."
"Makes sense," said Lee. They hadn't told him, but then he had accepted, by then, that the twins weren't going to tell him everything.
·•·
The twins were the tech- they didn't want to put the Weasleys in danger, especially with Ginny at school and Mr. Weasley and Bill still working. Lee and Remus were the anchors. They didn't have much to lose, and the Ministry didn't have official record of Remus's marriage, which meant Tonks could stay out of danger.
They moved around a lot. Once, Lee had entertained a number of possible careers. Fugitive radio host? Not one of the ones he'd thought about, but then that was life. Tried very, very hard to throw you for a loop, and if you were lucky (or unlucky, depending on who you asked) enough to be best friends with Weasleys, then life would probably try harder, the bugger.
They rarely had enough food, which, combined with stress, made all of them cranky and snappish. Once Kingsley went on the run and came to join them, though, they ate better, because Kingsley is an excellent cook, and having someone outside their trio and occasionally Remus helped morale by a lot.
"Good to have so many of us, really," said Fred the first night they had five around their fire. "Just three is awful."
Lee agreed, but for a different reason.
There were, of course, close calls. One duel, two narrow escapes, once they Apparated into a nest of snakes, but on the whole they do well for themselves until May, when they decided against the passcodes and the tapping for the news that Harry Potter had just escaped Gringotts on the back of a dragon. They got the message out, but were interrupted mid-broadcast by the Death Eaters.
"I told you we needed the passwords!" said George to Fred in the split second before all four of them- Remus was away with Tonks- were duelling.
They slept in Muriel Weasley's attic; Ginny woke them up at half-ten, already dressed.
"My Galleon went off," she said, and held it out to them. "We need the Order to get to Hogwarts."
They all exchanged glances.
"I'm coming," she added, her mouth set stubbornly, frowning furiously. It was a dare and a challenge. They didn't have time to fight. She went.
·•·
Lee had spent most of his life as the third member of a group that was mostly twin. Sitting with his legs stretched in front of him and his hands shaking on the arms of his chair, he considered that he wasn't that anymore.
Now they were two people of a group that was meant to have three- Lee didn't know how to live that way, and as much as he didn't know what to do, George knew less.
He tried, tentatively, to help him, to talk to him, to be there, but George didn't ever want to do anything. He moved into Bill's spare room. Told Lee it was because the Burrow was unbearable and the store was worse. Slept. Read the newspapers.
"I know," he said, one day when Lee was over. Lee looked up, surprised- George hadn't said a word to him for three days. "I know he wouldn't want me this way, I know he'd say to celebrate the war, and the time we had-" He breaks off.
"Yeah," said Lee, when it became clear that George didn't have anything to add.
"I just can't honestly see myself ever being happy again," said George. "You remember the dementors?"
"Yeah," said Lee.
"This is worse."
·•·
They got drunk a few times, which was a little better. George would smile, sometimes. They reminisced and it didn't hurt as much. They felt terrible the morning after. The pain from the reminiscing set in. It was unbearable. Lee wondered if the drunken wistfulness was worth it.
It really wasn't. They kept doing it.
"Man, it must have been hard, Lee," said George, the day they both got up the courage to go back to the shop. Ron and Percy are here too, somehow washed out and hanging back awkwardly. "To be our friend."
"Prone to explosions," said Lee. It wasn't funny, and he hadn't really intended it to be. George nodded slowly, put one hand on the doorframe. They were both standing outside on the doorstep. There was a kindly-faced woman peering at them indiscreetly; Lee figured she must know about Fred, about George, about why this was the first time the door got opened since the end of the war.
"I'm gonna open the door," said George.
"Yeah," said Lee.
George shut his eyes when he did it.
The shop didn't seem like anything much had changed. Lee had expected it to be ransacked or something, but it was fine. He wondered if it was better or worse that way. He couldn't decide. George dusted off one of the boxes nearest to the door and sighed.
"I'm glad we had the presence of mind to get the Pygmies," he said.
"The Pygmies?" asked Percy tentatively from the doorway, where he and Ron seem afraid to come in.
"I," said George, then stopped. "We took them all back to the Burrow, Ginny got them to Muriel's."
There was a long pause. George picked up a handful of Edible Dark Marks and let them fall out of his hands back into the bin. "Lee, I'm sorry," he said. "Must have been hell, being best friends with us."
"I was glad to be," said Lee quietly. "Wouldn't have wanted anything else."
And he meant it.