A/N: Fourth year. Probably May-ish. Shockingly long chapter (don't get used to it – I hope), and might I add, it hijacked me. It was planned- even initially written differently, and instead, you have this. Hope you like it. (I'm hoping it's sane- my wisdom teeth have just come out, this was my first point of being coherent enough to finish it, and I'm clutching the ice to my mouth as I write this- so it's not very.) My heartfelt thanks to all reviewers, and please, drop a line to tell me what you think- it'll make my very sore, achey tomorrow sooooo much better.
IV.
George thought it was supposed to hurt less.
Although he'd been practically promised by a ludicrous number of strangers and relations, he hadn't believed himself to be expecting much. Yet even in the days when he was suffocating on absences, George never believed four years on that life would be such a sorry wrung-out rag that needed a good Scourgify. He didn't think he'd still instinctively look for his brother every time he had a good laugh.
The thought that someday he wouldn't chilled him more than anything else.
If anything, it was worse, because it had been too long now since he had found Fred's inane grin at his elbow, or for that matter, elbowed him. He'd adjusted to wearily completing his own thoughts, with no one pondering what he was pondering. He couldn't find anyone to meet his wide and popping-with-horror eyes at home when Ron started in on the Cannons, since Ginny paid serious attention to any Quidditch conversation. He almost turned them on his mother, but figured she'd assume he was choking.
He'd adjusted, all right.
He loathed every second.
He was someone new now, and he certainly didn't like himself as much.
Frankly, George was more bored than he or Fred could have imagined. And (if possibly) more frightening, was the thought of where he'd be four more years on, farther away from Fred and his laugh.
George had thrown himself so fully into the Irremovable Gloves that he'd forgotten to eat all yesterday, eventually knowingly devouring Ton-Tongue Toffees in sheer desperation. Even the Puking Pastilles were beginning to look appetizing.
Watching his tongue expand and chortling as he put it to rights, he'd turned to Fred-
-despite all his adjustments, there was a second-
Well. He'd be doing this forever, wouldn't he? After all, that was how long it felt he would live for.
Ron was a passable business partner, but presently he'd have seized as a hound would bunnies any mere memory scrap, shred, echo or shadow of Fred to finish his sentences.
He was an echo himself.
When he realized he'd been self-pityingly staring at his hands, finally wrenched free of the clinging mittens with the proper peeler, for a good hour, George decided drinking alone was an exceptionally bad and boring idea and knew precisely where he could go at four in the morning.
He skipped out of the flat, down the street, and turned down alleyways where he and Fred had been forbidden to tread since they were yeh high and their eyes twinkled softly.
He really knew better than to hang about Knockturn nocturnally. It felt safe once, with Fred to watch his back, and exciting too, but now, he felt nothing.
The Fowl Roast was purportedly a restaurant, but its patrons were rarely interested in a meal produced by anyone other than Ogden, especially at this hour in the morning. The sign professed no occupancy in the rooms for rent upstairs and portrayed a roasting phoenix, legs poking up in the air. The picture bore an eerie resemblance to Dumbledore's old bird.
George Weasley was drawing an intently interested group of onlookers as he tucked his napkin into his collar and stretched out his legs to the empty seat across from him. The waitress looked part troll- perhaps a relation of Marcus Flint, who was drinking at the bar with Montague and burning another hole in George's head with his eyes. The patronage further consisted of goblins consorting with rag-draped hags (one of whom actually wasn't an eyesore beneath her shawl), a toothless warlock was chewing through his bottom lip as he contemplated George, and Willy Widdershins, who was practically wetting himself as he hurtled out the greasy kitchen door to avoid the son of Arthur Weasley, whose raids were the bane of Knockturn Alley as a rule.
He ordered a variety of elf-made wine which was a study in false advertising as it was unlikely to be wine and dubious in its elvishness. George caught a glimpse of what might have been a Cornish Pixie floating about, and swigged it anyhow.
He made it through the mashed potatoes all right, though he wasn't sure if he'd survive them, given a few hours for effect. It wasn't as if he was here for the quality menu of the establishment.
He was genuinely hoping to duel Montague, but it was the goblin, drunk on something George wanted to know the name of, who tipped his table and sent the fork flying into his face.
The low mumbling about the bar actually picked up, though from the sudden attention and darkening, blank faces, he guessed it was the equivalent to most bars falling silent. (He was used to that; happened in Muggle locations when they noticed the ear.)
The goblin's less-drunk compatriots stood up, twitching their long fingers.
George smiled broadly around the room in general, plucked the fork out and twiddled it before positioning it perfectly back on the plate. With a yawn in the goblins direction, he ducked into the bathroom, making sure he was un-followed first.
It was less skeezy then he anticipated; he discovered one unbroken mirror once he headed towards its fractured sink.
The hole looked especially grim in the yellow glow one couldn't rightly call light.
George dipped his head into his shoulder, raking his fingertips over his features in self-preparation. Through them he could see his miserable reflection, incidentally angled in such a way that the hole in his head was unnoticeable. He hoped fervently Flint and Montague hadn't ran for it. He studied the fresh cut on his cheek in the mirror and raised his wand to insure it wouldn't scar.
"Comb your hair," snipped Fred.
He jerked back in reflex, spastically backing away with pin-wheeling arms. His heel skidded on something squishy and he reeled back. His back hit the ground with a piercing pain.
After a moment of studying the ceiling, speckled multi-colored from godric-knew-what, George righted himself and limped upright. Face scrunched up, he reached a hand to the glass, tapping his one-eared image. "Fred?" he mouthed, watching the lips of his other self form the same name.
The enchanted mirror continued, "You look a sight, dearie. Why don't-"
He bit through his tongue as he swore his dismay.
When the glass shattered, he started with confusion and panic, palms lifted to protect his face.
Only a moment later did he feel the pain, and begin to pry the shards from his soft flesh.
Blowing on the wound as if it would make it better, he cracked his neck and prayed for a duel.
Without his second, but then, that was the problem.
Twiddling his wand, he marched out.
Half the bar leaped on him.
"Brilliant," he marveled aloud, before punching the waitress in the nose and kicking a goblin on his way to Disarm Flint. All it was missing was Draco Malfoy… and some other important bits, but there was nothing to be done about that.
"Tarantellegra," he bellowed, swinging his wand around and plopping a Shield Hat from the deep pockets of his dragon hide jacket. He dodged a nasty curse he didn't recognize that whizzed by in a wave of puce, then snapped his wand around to deflect another.
The four goblins were obviously going to be a problem, but they were of the grungy variety, not Gringotts, and like the six-ish wizards jumping him, a good two-thirds of them had the glazed, hyper-confident look of Felix addicts.
Grinning cheerfully, he pulled Luminous Balloons out and starting hexing them to explode while still managing to shoot off a Jelly Legs at anyone who came close.
Montague, snarling, leapt for him with a Suffocation jinx; with something of a choke, he pulled off Relashio non-verbally.
One of those O.W.L.s had been in DADA, after all.
He hit a goblin with a tongue-splitting curse and was about to pull out the Portable Swamp when the not-bad-looking hag dropped a glass she had Levitated above him onto his head from where she sat across the room.
Although still fully aware, he dropped like Wronski in a feint, accidentally knocking Flint down with him.
He came to at the bar, opening his eyes to stare at Fred.
He lifted his head from the dented dingy countertop with its distinctive ancient smell of whiskey-drenched wood. "You're dead," said George, confused, and a nearby hag moved another seat away. Behind his eyes he ached with blood flow.
The wavery figure behind the shot glasses and broken nettle wine bottles gaped back, and George re-oriented.
Fred had possessed both ears and he expected that was unlikely to change. There were people standing behind him in the mirror as well, as obscure as a shape would be in a Foe-Glass.
Not caring, he flopped back down, slightly too hard, only to hear a firm, "No you don't," from, as far as he could gather, directly behind him.
A hand yanked on the back of his collar, pulling him upright. "Katie?" Angelina Johnson prompted.
Water sprouted from nowhere and shot into his eyes and mouth. Defensively, he held up his hands, protesting.
"That seems a little harsh," said Alicia Spinnet's voice worriedly.
"Somebody needs to slap some sense into him," Katie Bell chimed in, from somewhere behind or maybe above him. "I volunteer Angelina."
"What?" said George, uncertain where to look. He was surrounded. The girls were leaning into his vision, concernedly, from all sides, and while it was not a bad sight, they looked somewhat ominous at the moment.
"No, George," Angelina assured him, swiveling his stool so he faced them. "I'm not going to hit you-"
"Fine, I will-"
"Katie!"
"Scuse me-" George tried, swaying. Between the knock on his head and the alcohol, they were pretty swirls, but either they were all wearing Quidditch robes, complete with protective wrist gauntlets, or he had conjured them from his extremely vital imagination in the form he knew them best.
"Pity Lee's got the Sober-Up Potion-"
"Pity, nothing- Angelina, some of the ingredients in that are really illegal-"
"Since when have Fr- " She cleared her throat. "When's George ever cared about that?"
"Alicia, don't let her give me anything that'll kill me," George begged, turning his head towards the girl in question.
"I'm Katie," the blur holding him up on his left laughed, with a undertone that suggested he'd see her eyes rolling if he could see straight. "You can't be that drunk, George. All these years we kept you two right- and had a job of it, I'll t-"
Alicia, the real one this time, hushed her swiftly but not before George felt the rushing giddiness of being referred to as one of two again.
"Y'sure about that?" he slurred, because he missed the days when he could swap with Fred more than anything, and tried to wink but ending up blinking at Angelina instead.
"I hope," the lovely black girl said dryly, "you're not gone enough to confuse Katie and me."
He grinned blearily up at her. "Not bloody likely. Hullo." He gazed about the bar, with the hulking waitress lugging a few heaps upright, and one table still afire. There were charred marks all around the area of the men's bathroom. "You lot save me?" His only other idea involved Dung Fletcher leaping out from the woodwork in very uncharacteristic style, but that made more sense than the Gryffindor Chasers in this dump.
"Looks like they needed the saving," Katie Bell observed, sounding impressed.
Alicia folded her arms, hair waving as she half-shook her head. "Don't encourage him- George Weasley, you're going to get yourself killed."
"'M not!" he protested, shocked, as he supported his head with his hands.
"We didn't save you," Angelina informed him quietly.
"You owe your friend Verily-"
"Verity," Alicia corrected immediately.
"A job," Katie finished, somewhat sourly.
His mind flashed on the nice-looking hag and he wondered what on earth she was doing here, and in disguise. He'd seen her working at Flourish & Blotts over a large part of the past three years. They didn't really speak, though he'd thought about it many the time. He wasn't sure what type of name-basis they were on.
His girls knew Verity??
That couldn't be good.
"We've had someone on you lately," Katie said pleasantly, sitting down next to him and stretching out her legs. "It's mostly Ron, Ginny and Harry, but us occasionally. Wood. Your brother Percy."
"You're scaring us," Alicia elaborated, eyes wide and with a deep breath.
"Not that you didn't always," Angelina muttered, and Bell let out a soft huff of air just shy of a laugh.
This was embarrassing. Verity too? "She can have her job again?" he tried, weakly, and very confusedly.
"Doubt she'll take it," Johnson murmured, face stern. "If you grovel, possibly. Lee brought her in, talk to him."
Lee was worse than Fred with pretty girls. "Why all of you? Here? Beyond-"
"Your usual idiocy?" Katie suggested.
He shot a half-glare at her; she recoiled, frowning, but shaking her head, looked over to Alicia with a bit of a grin. He knew those looks. They were the sort that used to precede fits of giggles, whether over Roger Davies' hair or Viktor Krum's victory record or him and Fred messing about.
"It's our anniversary," said Angelina, smiling.
For a moment he thought she meant her and Fred, but then there was nothing to commemorate. He looked between them for further answered but found only visible silent laughs in the half-parted lips and visible front teeth. Forlornly, he shifted his gaze from one to the other, awaiting explanation.
"Come along," Angelina encouraged.
He stood up. Very quickly, he sat back down.
Wordlessly, Alicia and Angelina yanked up on each arm. He jerked forward, and with the professionalism of players in a sport where one quickly grew accustomed to dragging teammates off the field, he found each arm over a set of shoulders. Katie, meanwhile, moved to shove the nearest passed out person aside and paused. "Do we know this one?" she asked.
George squinted, staggering to stabilize so the girls didn't bear all his weight. "Montague," he explained, elaborating as the sparks had left a good rash on their old foe's face.
Angelina rolled her eyes.
"Could never keep them straight," Bell remarked, which he presumed was part of why she never made captain.
"Bit hard when they all looked like baby trolls on Skele-Grow," he replied instantly and she laughed, while a movement from Alicia's shoulders betrayed her amusement. Angelina tried to be impassive, but he knew her too well.
"He was slightly better looking than Flint," Alicia remarked, unconcerned.
"Not anymore," Katie giggled, toeing the unconscious form a touch harsher than necessary to edge them out of the shuffling trio's way.
"Verity's the one who knocked me out," George remembered suddenly, nearly knocking the girls supporting him over as he jerked his head upright. "What'd she-"
"You did fire her," pointed out Alicia.
Ah, true. "So where we off to?" he said brightly, and they all resumed their innocent, close-mouthed looks as they made their way out the saloon-style doors.
Alicia Side-Along Apparitioned him.
He remembered when his friends had trusted him, and there was no second thought to popping himself anywhere, since his mind was always his own.
"Harry's not coming," were the first words out of Oliver Wood's mouth, in the frenetic way they knew and loved. "Basilisk eggs- who cares about- I mean, if they're even real, what are the odds they'll hatch now?" he demanded, thoroughly exasperated. "Weasley, you look like shit, how are you?"
George wondered if this was all some big practical joke. If so, he was adequately impressed. "Hi Oliver," he managed.
It was sometime in the early hours of the morning, probably four a.m. unless he'd been out longer than he'd thought, with a touch of rising orange at the mouth of the horizon in the east. Shards of dew clung to the grass blades, and the Quidditch pitch rose before them in a dip. The hoops glinted in the moonlight. He was flanked by four of the seven man team of Wood's Hogwarts years. Lee grinned at him, waving a microphone at him.
George wondered how he'd missed traveling by Time Turner and looked about for McGonagall. He poked Katie Bell in the shoulder to make sure she was real. She apparently was, unless he was inventing the slight give of the skin and the annoyed intonation in her "Ow." "You're kidding," he worked out of his mouth at last.
"I broke into your flat and brought your broomstick," Lee offered giddily, mouth stretching so broad in his grin it hurt to watch. He was justifiably pleased with himself. It wasn't an easy task.
"It is the eighth-" Wood stopped, pained. "I wanted to do the seventh," he said sadly. "But Harry had some vampire problem at work, your brother was mixed up in it, George. I wanted us all here- and really. What inspires a bloke to go sticking chicken eggs under toads, anyhow? Where'd you even get the chicken egg?" He looked earnestly puzzled, probably because baby basilisks had little use in Quidditch. "Don't answer that," he added to Lee, who was poised, microphone at lips, before steamrolling on. "Now we won't even have si-" he started mournfully
"Did you see if Ginny could fill in?" Angelina cut in.
His eyes lit up. "Johnson, I could k-"
"Don't," his successor advised, shaking her head. "I've got it." She Disapparated with a quick, business-like crack!
George's expression was extremely wary. "Where-"
"Are you?" Oliver guessed. George winced. "Portree!"
"Ah, right," said Lee. "You play for them."
The captain's expression went dark. "Puddlemere," he shot furiously. "Seven years- Mungo's sake, I've been made captain of the United- why does everyone from school have the misconception-"
"We knew it started with a P," George interjected, grinning.
Oliver's expression froze, and he sighed. Whatever he would have said was lost forever as Angelina popped! back in their midst with casual ease, calmly brushing at her robes. Her landing was perfect; those standing around her staggered back into each other. George caught Lee, only to go down off-balance a second later with the other boy on top of him. "She'll come," she announced, flicking her hair back into place. Angelina then took note of George and Lee, the latter of whom waved sheepishly up at her.
"For a moment I thought you'd be Roger Davies," said George through Lee Jordan's shoulder, "arriving with the Ravenclaws to play us for the game we never got to your second-last year, Wood."
"No, not Davies," Wood replied dismissively. "But Corner and his lot should be here-" He checked his watch. "Fifteen minutes, give or take, once we've warned up properly.
Katie's mouth dropped; Alicia reached to tug on his arm to persuade him otherwise; and Lee sat up, looking delighted at the possibility of a larger audience.
"He's joking," Angelina explained with a heave. "Aren't you, Oliver?" she turned anxiously to assure herself.
Their Captain- still him, really, although the title'd been past- looked disheartened. "I thought it was obvious!"
"Don't do that," George advised him, shoving Lee off him. "It's scary."
"I thought it was quite a good effort, Oliver," Lee chirped, directly into the megaphone. They collectively winced, hands clapping to their ears. George didn't bother clapping both hands to his one, though he knew perfectly well he could play it for laughs.
"Had me," Katie said, slightly breathless. "I was expecting blue robes any-"
Ginny cracked! in, decked in full Harpie gear. "Your jaw's swelling," she informed George, bending to peck him on the cheek. He recoiled in pain as he realized she was right.
"All set then?" said Oliver briskly, rubbing his hands as Angelina reached for the latch of the trunk behind him.
"'Scuse me," George demanded, as Angelina tossed him his club. He ignored it; it smacked Katie's face instead. She snatched it off the ground and tapped him hard on the shoulder with it. He ignored it. Alicia took it from her with a scowl.
"Problem?" asked Angelina coolly, because no one else would.
He lowered his hand. "We're a Beater short," said George curtly, refuse to look around at his fellows' expressions. "Unless River here's suddenly developed the ability to stay up in the air for longer spurts or found a way to get Fred to possess him-"
"'Cor, that'd be cool!" Lee exclaimed enthusiastically.
Angelina glared. He withered. The microphone drooped.
Wood shifted anxiously. "I've only got one Bludger."
"Purposely?" George asked, eyes flashing.
"What? No! It's not l- It's the set from the game Harry nearly died-"
"Which time?" Jordan interrupted curiously.
"The time resulting in one less Bludger," Oliver responded automatically, looking at him as if he were mad. "Look- we don't have to- I thought'd it be, y'know, a good time."
"It will be," Angelina Johnson informed them all, collecting the club from Katie and brandishing it at George like an ultimatum. Her dark glare boded ill for anyone who availed not to enjoy themselves.
"Actually I think Oliver was hoping to recruit Harry for Puddlemere," Ginny told George low near his ear. She kept her gaze idly on the pitch and her mouth barely moved. "He's not having it. Still, this ought to be a real go- I always wanted to play for Oliver, he's smashing."
He kept his eyes on Alicia Spinnet, who was elbowing Katie somewhat nervously, as he muttered back through the edge of his mouth. "Harry's a decent mate and I owe him money. Cause for him to worry?"
She threw back her head in a derisive laugh, which left the rest of the group staring at her with some confusion.
"It's a practice," Wood explained, taking the club from Johnson and tossing it to George.
It was one of Fred's old ones. The scuffled grip fit his hand as well as any could. He swung it around a bit, testing it out, nearly taking off Katie's head.
It felt good.
"Why are you here, anyway?" Oliver proceeded to ask Lee, who held up his hands innocently.
George overheard the girls discussing whether he should be flying or not, and before any of them decided to force-feed him the Sober-Up Potion, he swept up his Cleansweep Five. A sliver of the chain still hung on it. Grinning, he strode over to the unlatched trunk and kicked open the lid, hand reaching for the Bludger's straining braces.
"That's not until we get to the Backbeat drill!" yelped Oliver, dropping his broomstick and shoving past Lee and Angelina as the Bludger leapt free. He dove on it, getting a two-handed grip, and was promptly dragged through the grass behind it as it darted forward. Grunting, he attempted to pull it to chest level, but Katie, cheekily, had plucked out the Quaffle and punted it to Angelina.
In seconds she was up on her broomstick, seizing it under her armpit as she sped off towards the center hoop amidst the eastern sky.
Wood let go of the Bludger and bolted back towards his broomstick as if he had a horde of angry Wasps fans on his heels.
George, whooping, caught up with the Bludger and belted it to punch the Quaffle right out from underneath Angelina's arm. She turned, her one thick braid whipping in the wind, and caught his eye with a slim smile that made him deeply regret she'd never be competing with Fleur and whoever Perce or Charlie married for the affections of the sort generally reserved for Ginny. Then Alicia zipped beneath to catch it as it fell like molasses ground-ward, and passed it ahead to Katie. Though the two of them were rustier than the third Chaser, Katie caught it without even looking.
His sister was lightly blowing dust off the Snitch, watching its silver wings slip free with utter joy as it sputtered to life. Then, free, it danced a darting path around Wood's gaze, which never deterred from the hoops he was speeding towards, and fluttered off to lurk somewhere. Shaking her head slightly, she let the broom zip up to her hand and Ginny joined the others in the sky.
"And they're off!" Lee Jordan spouted into the microphone, and realizing no one was listening, continued bellowing anyways and followed after them on foot, trailed by a cord that went to nowhere.
"And it's Spinnet to Johnson, Johnson to Bell, attempt on goal- nice, Oliver- to Johnson, to Weasley- the Seeker- that's not called for, George- who has chucked it at her brother's head after that close call with the Bludger, better duck, George- ooh, too slow- Spinnet recovers, tries on goal- Wood, is it even fair when you're playing for Eng- whoa, Ginny Weasley, surprise attack on goal, c'mon, yessss! And WEASLEY is our- queen, folks-"
Oliver made a confused face at Lee, as Katie swept from behind the pitch- "Bell, clearly out of bounds there, but – well, back to Johnson- double goal on the Keeper there- hi, Angelina!- and Alicia Spinnet's making for the other goalposts, better go after her there, Wood!"
"That's- we're playing half-pitch!" Oliver was yelling, but he was jolting forward on the broomstick anyways in a sorry attempt to cross the field before his former Chasers- and Ginny Weasley, who'd lost all regard for the Snitch zipping unnoticed through Lee Jordan's dreadlocks.
George was pursuing an oddly happy one-man war against, and sometimes with, the Bludger, saving Katie from a contusion here, Ginny from a blow to the hip and himself from a broken nose. He helped Oliver out from time to time, sending it in a narrowly-dodgeable path towards the Chaser likely to score. He became distracted only when Angelina tossed him the Quaffle, which he caught left-handed in sheer shock. He was suddenly aware of the bulk of Oliver Wood streaming towards him in a professional forward tackle and without a thought in his head, drew back the club to punch the Quaffle up into the lightening sky.
The Bludger, meanwhile, slammed down to the sand of the pitch, tossing the grains up like a salad, while Lee Jordan desperately recounted his own life-saving antics.
Shaking his head, George sped down to knock it away from him.
They battered around for a while that went like a sunny day, even trying, to their detriment, to knock the Bludger around with spells.
"Oliver, Relashio makes it angry!" shouted Angelina, pulling off an impressive Starfish-with-Stick that very nearly became a Starfish-Without-Stick as it grazed the top of her dark hair.
"It doesn't- urgh," Wood wholloped it with the Beater club, before sending it spinning over to Katie, who caught it neatly to whack the Bludger to George's poised arms, "have a personality!"
"Bludger have- argh-" George toppled off the broomstick, Ginny narrowly caught it and dove to catch him by the collar. "Feelings too," he said weakly, as he remounted, half-choked, mid-air. Waving her off, he coughed dramatically as his sister dramatically swatted it away from the Bludger. He caught sight of the Golden Snitch amidst her mane of flaming hair, but decided not to draw attention to it. He didn't want this ending yet. "Weaforbl," he tried weakly.
"Are you going to be sick?" Ginny wondered, belting the Bludger against the hoop. It let off a strangely beautiful clang of metal against metal, before- almost woozily, George thought- hurtling off after Lee again.
"Weasleys for Bludger Lives?" he managed, adoring how lame it was.
"Fred would strangle you for that one," she said idly, looking for the Quaffle and not the Snitch.
"I know," he said lovingly, and quickly turned his attention back to the ball trying to kill them all.
They were playing in a warm pink glow, and truly playing at that. Katie was covered with a strange rubbery substance from blowing up the initial Quaffle; George impressed them all by managing to conjure a duplicate. Katie hadn't bothered to clean up, too intent on scoring before George decided to explode the next one too and turn the whole thing into something unfashionable like Quodpot.
Ginny even offered to take a break and let Lee up, but her broomstick rolled over sadly when he tried, and he insisted he was better off with feet firmly planted anyhow. He was covered in sand, the rest of them were covered with sweat, too worn to tease or smile. Even the old Bludger was lagging.
"I got it!" yelped Alicia suddenly, demonstrating the Snitch up her sleeve. Wood, sincerely impressed, instantly began commending her on an excellently demonstrated Plumpton Pass and mentioning how he'd had her in mind for potential Seeker, if Harry hadn't turned up. She agreed whole-heartedly they'd done it on purpose and Lee, in his by now fervid excitement combined with lack of sleep, began yelling her praise with obscenities McGonagall would have fed him to Filch for.
The girls circled in a pinwheel around her, spinning groundward. Halfway down Alicia beckoned Oliver, who sheepishly darted over, and Ginny and Angelina forcibly grabbed the lurking George and broomstick into the pile.
They were positioned to land on top of the still-shouting Lee, giggling as George blew raspberries across the circle of faces and Katie and Alicia simultaneously messed up Wood's hair, when a whistle rang out from the far post. George, falling over half-onto his sister's broomstick, plummeted the both of them and his sister with them.
The group that had survived the Battle of Hogwarts staggered up from the tangle, wands raised, Katie trapped underneath Ginny and only George's waving hand poking up bravely from beneath Angelina. Wood, in a fight stance, spotted them first. "Gobshite."
The Pride of Portree Quidditch team were lined up alongside the field, their deep purple robes striking against the morning sky. Meaghan McCormack, the Captain, leaned out her broomstick and stuck her fingers in a mouth to give them a second wolf-whistle. Oliver Wood blushed purple.
"I think I'm late for practice," said Angelina easily, looking down at her still-fitting but worn Gryffindor robes with only faint concern. They'd thought they'd be long gone by this hour, starting in the wee hours as they had, but apparently she'd miscalculated.
"Language, Oliver," chided George, a touch late.
"Can we stay and watch?" Wood asked eagerly, receiving a patented look from Angelina in turn.
"You don't get to spy," she told him. "Go on, get. Ginny-"
"We're playing you Sunday next, if I don't see you before then," said his sister. She waved at the Pride of Portree. Her opposite number waved less enthusiastically back.
"You're not in trouble, are you?" asked Alicia with some concern, following the others' glances over to them
"'Course not," Johnson said bracingly. "Long as I don't fall asleep on my Nimbus, I'm brilliant. See you lot later." Her gaze flicked over to the sole Weasley twin. "George- don't make us collect your arse-"
"Cute arse though it is," chimed in Lee, leading Oliver to sigh because he'd said it into the microphone and the Pride was now staring more intently, one of them calling loudly, "Is that Oliver Wood??"
"Right, then," said Angelina decisively, glancing between the groups. "I'm off." She took an almost-sideways step away.
"Dinner?" Lee called to her jokingly. "Winged polo?"
"Yes, Lee," Angelina shot back. "When you fly."
He staggered back, wounded. "I'll take you," he told George, who'd braced him by fortune of location. "You're the one with the cute arse."
"That's me," said George affectionately, dropping Lee on his own as he sidled left. "Kisses, Ang."
She stared him down, with a touch less affection, and moved closer, to mutter, almost. "You're no stranger, George Weasley. I know you're lonely-"
"'M never a-"
"-Lone?" she finished, with a slight smile that shut down the 'don't do that' rising like bile in his throat. "That's the idea… We'll do drinks," she determined loudly, backing away. Her gaze slid across the group to their former captain. "Wood, get them all tickets to your Bats game-"
He gaped. "You could get them tickets- or Wea-"
"Wood," she said warningly. "This Friday. You're the captain." Whether she meant of Puddlemere or of them, no one could tell or care.
"Behind the hoop, Oliver?" Alicia inquired cozily, and Katie whooped quietly. Although she probably had tickets herself through the Department of Magical Games and Sports, they were likely to give her another nosebleed, without the need for a nougat.
They wanted to protect him, the way they hadn't been able to save Fred. It was sweet, almost.
"Good luuuuck," called Lee warningly as Angelina waved them off the field, her chocolate eyes not lingering on anyone in particular. She didn't look at George as he might have been somebody else, who might someday have been something else to her. He suspected she didn't allow herself that.
"See you," she told them all breezily, the same tone she'd called after Fred in when the twins had ran off after laughingly greeting her, Wood and the whole old Quidditch team.
Shoulders straight and chin up, she strode off.
Lee mock-sighed as they turned to go. George lightly turned the by-now splintering wood of his brother's club in his hand, ignoring curious words from his friends and for a brief summer morning moment, letting his thoughts stray to the most dangerous land of all. The might-haves that filled the empty bed in his room, the potential in unfinished sentences.
Lonely, he considered, the word for witches with loads of cats and boys who'd lost their broomsticks and sweethearts.
He figured it as good a word as any for a hole.
What did she want him to do, though? Ask out Vicky Frobisher? Hire a free elf? Name the Bludger Fred?
With a pasted smile, he turned under the pink sky, slinging the bat over his shoulder, and debating the ways to get Oliver's goat before Alicia started in on the nasty turn of a few of his products lately.
If he had to be lonely, maybe they had it right, this not-being-alone. He followed the remnants of his team, glancing once for a quick glimpse of the girl who'd danced with his brother at the ball and catching instead the woman's slim silhouette against the sun before she was flocked by the teammates.
He shook his head only a little before turning to ask Lee if he knew the one about the ghoul, Jarvey, and Quidditch player who walked into the Leaky Cauldron.
Well, he thought, trailing along. Well.
She would have made one hell of a sister-in-law, that Angelina Johnson.