"Why is the counter sticky?"

George offered a boyish grin and wrapped his arms around my waist, successfully pinning my arms at my sides so I could not touch the sales counter again. That only made me more suspicious of the sticky patch I had just touched while trying to count the money for the night.

"What say we go out for dinner? Doesn't that sound lovely? Get out of the shop for a bit! You've had a trying couple weeks!"

"Don't try to distract me," I ordered, although I had to admit the prospect of not cooking sounded lovely. The few weeks since my mother's funeral had provided a significant improvement over my mood, though I did still find myself slipping into a darkness that not even George could pull me from. Being back home with my family, my mother's possessions packed safely away to deal with in the future, made me feel lighter. "Why is the counter sticky?" George's eyebrows knitted together in clearly-feigned confusion. "Fred," I looked around for his accomplice to no avail. "Frederick Gideon Weasley!"

"Whaaaat?" The whine drifted from the back of the shop, and a shock of ginger hair burst up from in between two displays. "I'm trying to straighten up!"

"Why is the counter sticky?"

There it was. The look. The look that passed between Fred and George when they made a silent agreement over something. Eyes locked for half a second too long, jaws just a fraction too tight, the hint of a question on the face of one, the slightest nod of the head from the other.

This was a conspiracy.

"George!" I tried to wriggle free of his arms, but he recognized the accusation in my tone and instantly tightened his grip. That only made me struggle harder, jumping up and throwing my weight fully back against him in hopes of throwing him off balance enough that he let go. When that did not work, I tried again, this time kicking out for extra "umph". Again, no success, but I continued trying, adding some arm action as well. The ensuing scuffle knocked over both stools and backed us several paces away from the suspiciously sticky counter. "Let me go!"

"Ca-ugh-calm down!" he grunted, fighting to keep me in his tight grip. "Woman, would you settle?!"

With a huff, I landed on my feet and obligingly stayed put. He still held me tight, just in case I launched another attack (which I admittedly had planned), but allowed himself a heavy sigh.

"You slay me. Now, what is all this about?"

"THE COUNTER!"

At my outburst, he instinctively tightened his grip, and I let out a yelp at the pinching pressure on my stomach. "Sorry," he muttered, loosening significantly. "What about the counter?"

"Oh, honestly!" I heaved. He allowed me to wriggle free, and I grabbed my face in exasperation. "The counter. Is sticky. You two. Did something. To it. What?"

The boys looked to each other again, but I refused to let them wall me out like I knew they planned to. I whirled on Fred, who I knew to be the weaker link, I pointed as menacingly as I could. Time to pull out the ultimate threat.

"I could ask Angie."

One could practically see his resolve crack at the thought of his sick girlfriend hauling herself out of bed to settle this. She already wanted to murder the lot of us for making her spend the day with her cold, but I really had no time to brew her a Pepperup until the shop closed; with one cauldron locked up on the Polyjuice and the boys desperately needing a restocking, I could only do so much. I might be a witch, but I never claimed to be a miracle worker. And telling Angie that she needed to come solve the mystery of the sticky counter with her nose plugged and throat sore and eyes watery would only spell disaster for one of us. My money was on Fred. My money was always on Fred when Angie's wrath was involved.

"N…aaaah, well, ya' see," Fred began. George slapped his hands over his face, and I grinned triumphantly. Oh, how the mighty had fallen. "We were experimenting with this new product at lunch, see, and…erm…"

I held my hand up to silence him. "Say no more, dear. Just clean it up. I'm not touching it."

"I don't want to clean it!"

"Why are you calling him 'dear'?!"

"Silence!" I clamped a hand over George's mouth and pointed to the counter with the other. "You made the mess, you clean the mess. And," I turned to George, "I could start calling you 'dear' if you so desperately want, but it makes me feel like eighty."

George wrinkled his eyebrows as I freed his mouth. "It does sound like we're grandparents, don't it?" I nodded. "Call him dear. It suits him." He wrapped his arms around my waist and planted a firm kiss on the top of my head. "Your hair smells nice."

"New shampoo," I informed him. "Noticing doesn't get you out of cleaning that mess."

He let out a whimper and let me go. "But, Meeeeelllieee!"

"George. Clean. I'll get Angie."

"That only works on Fred. I'm dating you, not Angie."

I raised my eyebrows. "So, you're not afraid of her? Cool, I'll just pop up and bring her down here, then."

George lunged for my arm. "No, nonono, that's fine. Let the poor, sweet thing sleep. She's had a tough day. What with the…sun rising…and…the sky being blue, and all, it's been trying on her, hasn't it?" He grinned dramatically at me, and I had to bite my lip to stop from laughing at the success of my plan. "Fred's just about to clean the counter now. Nothing to worry about."

"WHAT?!" Fred exclaimed. "That's not…I never…ach." My love's twin deflated at George's sharp look. "Yeah, sure, you know me. I just love cleaning counters."

This return to normalcy in the past few weeks made my heart swell. Where I once felt like a waif, floating on the periphery, separated from the family by things I Knew and things I'd done, I slipped back in with a sense of belonging that hit me with more force than ever before. In the dark of night, George would curl an arm around me and murmur that he loved me, and I could really feel it. I found myself sleeping until morning on a near regular basis, save the few nights that my bladder prevented it.

Of course, the calm could never last, and we found ourselves once again rushing into an emergency one night not too distantly after the sticky counter situation. Ron, it seemed, knew how to ruin lives finally set at ease.

That's not fair at all. I shouldn't say that. I shouldn't even think that.

It is true, though.

I have to admit, I found his survival odd. Fortunate! Rowena, of course it was fortunate that Harry was there and grabbed the bezoar and knew what to do. But, see, that was were things got a bit fishy. Harry Potter was good. Oh, he was very good. I'd spent enough time in Dumbledore's Army to know that Harry Potter was full of surprises. It's just that, well, a bezoar wasn't exactly a surprise he should have.

"Bezoars aren't taught at Hogwarts, don't you see? How could he know what to do with one? How could he know?"

George, of course, find my rumination late that night irritating, but he dutifully wrapped his arms around my waist, rested his chin on the top of my head, and pulled my back against his chest. The fire crackled in front of us, illuminating the living room that Fred and Angie abandoned hours ago after a trying day of dealing with a panicked Weasley clan. "Love, can we just be thankful that Ron survived?"

"Of course I'm thankful! I just want to know why. Something's going on here, George, and it's worth looking at further."

"It's not," he murmured, planting a soft kiss on the soft spot just below my ear. "Ron's alive. Harry's alive. We're alive. Everybody's alive. And it's ridiculously late, so we should go to bed."

"George, I don't want to go to bed. I want to figure this out."

He squeezed his eyes shut and momentarily tightened his grip on me. The moment passed quickly, and, though forced, let out, "Mellie, you're not going to figure anything out at three in the morning. Could we please go to bed?"

"You can go if you want." Though, I really hoped he didn't. His warmth felt safe around me, and I could already imagine the loneliness swallowing me if he left. "I have too much to think about." And I did. I had quite a lot. A lot more than bezoars and poisoned mead, now that I had my thinking cap on.

George huffed. "So, Harry read about bezoars when he tried to figure out how to stay underwater during the Triwizard, or Hermione started blathering about them one day, or Snape drawled about them as some sort of insult to antidotes, or any number of ridiculous things. Now, can we please go to bed?"

"Why did you come back?"

George made a face at me. "Erm, I live here? This is my shop. Remember me? I'm your boyfriend, been mates since we were ten, loads better than that clod that copied my face?"

I rolled my eyes and vowed to one day stop blurting out questions and assuming everyone would just automatically follow my train of thought. "No, I mean back to me. After…well…" I shifted uncomfortably in his loosened grip and kneaded my hands together. "After what I did."

"Oh, Mellie," he breathed, pulling me back to him tightly. I squirmed to get away, but he bumped his noise against my temple, making it rude to keep trying to pull away when he was obviously trying to keep me there. "Do we have to talk about this right now?"

"Well, we can't talk about the bezoar anymore." Because that was clearly the logical compromise…

I could just imagine him rolling his eyes at me. "Honestly?" I nodded and craned my neck to see his face, eyes lit by the flickering flames. "I don't know. Fred posted me about your mum and all I could think about was what you were going through on your own." He licked his lips. "And how you're crap on your own. You can't be on your own, Mel. I don't want you to be on your own, that's the last thing I'd ever want, but then I'd gone and left you that way right when you most needed me. And, yeah, it hurt like hell and doesn't make sense to me, but…" He shook his head. "I love you. You needed me, and I love you, so I came back."

"Do you forgive me?"

He hesitated, and I was sure in that instant that he did not. We were doomed. We could never overcome this. I had ruined us forever.

"Y'know, for some reason, I do. I shouldn't, and I know I shouldn't, but I do." He wrinkled his nose and looked away from me, eyes wide as he sorted through thoughts he probably hadn't considered as much as he should have. Men. "Why do I forgive you?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. If roles were reversed, I would forgive you, if it helps any."

He nodded slightly. "It does. If roles were reversed, I wouldn't have been able to slip a potion into your tea, though. What did you slip into my tea exactly?"

"Something I came up with. I got rid of the recipe, can't make it again."

The corner of his mouth curled up. "Thank you." He pressed his lips to my hair and held them there for a long minute. "That means a lot." He rested his cheek against my temple and sighed. "I guess I understand why you did it, too. It does make sense. It wasn't right, but I can understand why you would think of it after all you've been through."

"I'm not a charity case. I don't want a few battles to become an excuse for everything I do, George," I murmured to the flames.

"That's not what I'm saying," he yawned. "I just mean that I understand. I know that Mel two years ago wouldn't have done it, and Mel now wouldn't have, and Mel the next day might not have, either. It was in that moment, with everything going through your head and the stars aligned just so, that led to it. And if you can be patient with me when a failed experiment makes me grumpy, I can certainly be patient with you when something a bit bigger than that affects your decision-making. So, I forgive you, I don't hold it against you in any way, and I love you."

His arms tightened around me, and his lips found the soft skin below my ear. "Are you done worrying about this now?"

No. "Yeah."

"Mellie."

I chuckled. Oh, he knew me too well. "I just didn't think it was that simple."

"I don't see how it's simple at all."

Am. SO. SORRY! I realize it's been almost a month since my last update, and that's ridiculously long even for me. Even though it doesn't make up for the wait at all, I assure you my focus on school has resulted in really good grades. Yay?...No? Yeah, I didn't think that'd be good enough. I'll tell ya' what. I've got a break coming up here, and I can use that time to write some. So, I can hopefully get another post up this weekend for you! I make no guarantees since I don't know my work schedule, but the next post will DEFINITELY be sooner. Thank you all SO MUCH for your lovely, lovely patience.

Next chapter: Enchanted