"George, give me back my wand!"
Wand… George was suddenly reminded of the prank wands he and Fred had developed for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Fred.
"George!"
"Wha-?" George shook his head and came face to face with the reality of his mother standing on the step below him, next to Ginny. "Sorry," he muttered earnestly, and handed Ginny back her wand, who then ran back to her room. He looked at his mother and saw that she was decently angry.
"You'll be washing the dishes tonight, George, as punishment." Mrs. Weasley said, and narrowed her eyes to show her son that she meant it.
"Yes, Mum."
"And no magic, either." She turned on the stairs and headed back towards the kitchen.
"No magic! But Mum-" George started hotly but was immediately cooled off by the glare Mrs. Weasley set over her shoulder at him. "Yes, Mum."
As George sat down to dinner, he was sure his mother had cooked an extravagantly large dinner purely to enjoy making George suffer. He looked at the pots and pans sitting on the stove. Inside one of the pans were the remnants of chicken skin, and in one of the pots, corn kernels that had dried to the bottom. What fun he was going to have after dinner.
Mrs. Weasley had ushered everyone out of the kitchen before she set George up with a bottle of dish detergent and a steel wool pad. "The dishes are charmed so that they won't be scratched by the scrubbing pad, so just go for it," she said, slightly warmer than she had been before dinner.
"Okay, Mum." George started on the dishes with his mother watching to make sure he was doing it right. She seemed satisfied and left after about minute. At first George tried to concentrate on scrubbing the pots and pans, but almost immediately his thought wandered to Fred. He missed Fred desperately; not having Fred in the bedroom with him was enough to drive him insane. He thought of all the fun he and Fred had had together, all the Skiving Snackboxes, love potions… Before he knew it, he was talking to Fred as if he were really there.
"We all miss you, Fred. Mum and Ginny especially. Mum's been on edge ever since you..." He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. "Well, that's why I'm doing the dishes by hand now. I kinda grabbed Ginny's wand out of her hand without realizing it. I couldn't help it; I had a lot of things to think about. But right away, Ginny thought I was trying to play a joke and Mum came in on it. So here I am washing the dishes. Honestly, though, I really don't mind. It's not as bad as I thought it'd be. The pots and pans are charmed so they can't be scratched, so I can figure out a way to make our Punching Telescopes work without leaving the person unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of that particularly fabulous gift with a black eye." He chuckled as he remembered when he had seen Hermione at the shop sporting a spectacularly black and blue eye. His chuckles subsided as he remembered that Fred had found that amusing too. He sighed. "It's torture not being able to work up new inventions for the shop with you. Only now do I realize that we were two halves of the same mind." He paused as he heard footsteps into the kitchen. He looked over his should to see Hermione peering in around the door frame, looking concerned.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, Hermione, I'm alright. Thanks."
Her eyebrows knit together a little, manifesting her worry that George was talking to himself, but she left anyway.
"That was Hermione. Asked me if I was okay. I told her I was; why wouldn't I be?" He stopped speaking as loudly as he was when he realized that he was seemingly talking to a mashed potato pan. He chuckled cynically as he came across the thought that maybe he wasn't okay after all. He shrugged the thought off, though, and continued talking. This time, though, his voice was significantly lower.
"Harry and Ron have taken to calling me 'Saint George'. I can't say I blame them, though. It is a rather catchy moniker. And I guess I am holey, so it all fits." He grinned a little to himself. "Swiss cheese ought to be my favorite cheese, then, since it's holey as well," he pondered musingly. He almost heard Fred laugh. He sighed.
"Dad and Bill have gone back to work. They've missed so much of it that they've had to work into the early hours of the morning. So Dad hasn't really been here much. Percy decided that he wasn't going back to the Ministry. Good thing, too. He's been cracking a lot more jokes lately. Mostly to keep our spirits up about you."
He reached into the sink and found that every dish had been washed. George found himself a little disappointed; he had been enjoying himself. It had felt good to get everything on his chest into the open, even though the person he was talking to wasn't able to hear him. He looked around the sink and saw that he had splashed around a lot of water. He didn't think his mother would mind if he used his wand to siphon up the water, and he did so. Sighing heavily and tucking his wand into his pocket, he walked into the living room where his mother was knitting. As he sat down on the sofa, he said "Hey, Mum?"
Mrs. Weasley did not look up from her needles, but said, "Yes, George?"
"I think I'll do the dishes from now on."