November 5, 1999

The day dawned cool, bright, and shining with the prospect of something exciting to come. Hermione slept very little during the night leading up to it and awoke very early in the morning. She waited impatiently for her clock to strike seven, pacing across her flat until Crookshanks, who was watching from the sofa, became dizzy from her movement and fell over. She then found herself unable to wait any longer and, seeing it was only five 'til, she floo'd to George's flat. She spun about and appeared in his fireplace, stepping out and finding George wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.

"Hermione!" he yelped in surprise.

"George!" Hermione cried, blushing scarlet and turning her head away. "Sorry! I was just bored stiff at my flat and figured it was only a couple minutes… but I should have asked first, I'm so sorry –"

"It's fine," George said, laughing. "I don't mind, honestly, but you don't seem too comfortable. Can't imagine why, seeing as I am a very handsome wizard and deserve to be ogled rather than avoided." This only made Hermione blush even more. "Your robes are in the break room. Why don't you go and get them on while I put on a couple extra articles of clothing?"

"Okay," Hermione said, shutting her eyes and shuffling blindly to the door. She silently thanked heaven that she had been there enough to be able to navigate without her eyes. When she reached it, she hurried down, slipping on her magenta robes and walking out into the shop. It had been, in the past three months, restored to its former glory. The shelves were stocked with hundreds of pranks, both new and old. It was an array of nearly every color imaginable and reminded Hermione of how George had been before the war – before Fred had died.

In the time that had passed since Christmas, George had improved drastically. It was slow, but Hermione had expected that and was willing to go at the speed George required to recover. She had begun by only visiting a couple hours once a week, bringing him dinner and forcing him to talk with her. She slowly increased the length and number of visits until she was visiting every day, slowly so as not to overwhelm him. In early August, he agreed to reopen the shop and began working on preparing the pranks and displays. On her birthday, he, without informing her of his plans, attended dinner at the Burrow. To her, there was no better present to be offered.

Despite these decisions and actions, however, few people still interacted with him. He came every other week to dinner at the Burrow, sticking close to Hermione and seeming ill at ease. He rarely left the shop or flat, Hermione being sent on most shopping and lunch errands. Occasionally, someone from his family would drop by, but the visits were never long. Today would be a huge step. Seeing as it was the grand re-opening of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, he would have to interact with hundreds of people every day. Hermione had convinced George to give her a job, insisting it was only because he would need help and she wanted to support him. She conveniently left out the fact that over the past ten months, she had begun to develop quite a crush on him – it wasn't hard to believe, she thought. He was handsome, funny, caring…. Pushing thoughts over her hopeless love life out of her mind, she returned her thoughts to the shop, which would be opening in an hour.

She began walking through the store, checking to make sure everything was in place while she was waiting for George. She came across a large chest that she didn't' recognize and pulled it open. Inside was, to her horror, a skeleton. She let out a shriek and backed up several steps, right into someone. She let out another cry as she twisted around and saw George grinning down at her.

"Okay there?" he asked, laughing.

"No," she said, "there's a skeleton over there!" She pointed at the chest, in which laid the bones. George just laughed again. She frowned and turned around to see it standing up and beginning to sing one of Celestina Warbeck's songs. She blushed. "Oh," she said. "Oops." George gave her a hug, smiling happily at her.

"Thanks for offering to help," George said. "You're the best, Hermione."

"It isn't a huge deal, you know," Hermione said, looking around the shop fondly. "It's going to be fun!"

~.~.~.~.~

"Oh sweet Merlin that was crazy," moaned Hermione, collapsing onto George's sofa after they closed.

"Poor Hermione underestimated her new career," George teased, sitting beside her. She snorted.

"Nah, just the energy of a hundred under eleven year old magic kids," Hermione retorted. George laughed.

"They're tricky sometimes," he admitted, "but kids are great.""

"They really are," Hermione agreed, a slightly dreamy look creeping over her features. George gazed at her, looking hypnotized, for a few seconds, before grinning once more.

"Hey, Hermione?"

"Yeah?" she replied, breaking her little trance and turning her head to look at her.

"Would you like to go out to dinner with me?"

She paused, looking at him in surprise. "Like a date?" she asked.

"Er, yes," George said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

Hermione hesitated for a moment, hardy daring to believe he was asking her out. Then she allowed herself to smile. "I would love to," she said. "I'll go change out of these robes and then we can go, yes?" George nodded enthusiastically and Hermione stood, leaving the room just in time to miss the victory dance that George performed behind her.

A/N: Part two! Autumn: an achievement. I used the prompt 'bones' for this part :)

I hope you like it! The next two parts will be along fairly soon.

Oh, and DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter, Hermione, George, WWW, or anything like that. Sad. But true.

-Naomi