This is a short one. I have more written, but I'm not going to get it typed up tonight, and figured an update was overdue.

This is a sort of linking chapter, but I thought it was about time the twins' birthday at least got a mention.

Next one is Ron and Hermione and is a mixture of angst and fluff...

You know the drill - please read and review.

1st March 1999 Ron Weasley is 19

I

"So what are you doing for your birthday next week?" George asked Ron on a rainy Tuesday morning when no one seemed to want to go shopping, and Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes was empty of customers. Angelina and Fleur were in the stockroom packaging orders. (Or Angelina was packaging them. George and Ron – worried about what Bill would do to them if Fleur over-exerted herself – were refusing to let her do anything that involved lifting anything heavier than a Pygmy Puff.) George was behind the counter half-heartedly scribbling plans for new products in a scruffy overstuffed folder which had been known as "The Ideas Book" since long before he and Fred opened the shop, and Ron was restocking shelves.

"Hermione and I are going out on the day itself," Ron replied, pausing with a box of exploding chess pieces in his hand. "Carlino's no less. But I thought we might have a brothers' night out on the Friday if everyone's around. Fleur said Charlie's coming over for that weekend, so it would be good to have all of us there. We could go to that new place, The Orange Dragon.

"Yeah. Sounds good to me. Though Charlie will probably object to the name and say there are no orange dragons." There was a slight edge to George's voice, and Ron realised why.

"George, I'm sorry," he stuttered. "I know we can't all be there, but…"

George sighed. "It's okay, Ron. I know what you meant. We can't put 'apart from Fred' in every sentence like that for the rest of our lives."

"No, I know we can't but…"

"It's okay, Ron, really," George said firmly. "Forget it."

Ron grimaced, but let the subject drop, to his brother's relief. At the back of his mind was the thought that George's – and more to the point, Fred's – birthday was only a month after his. He wondered if George had thought about it at all, or if he was avoiding doing so. He decided not to mention the subject.

George's mind was working in the same way, although he shied away from the idea of a birthday without Fred. At the moment, his preferred plan was to go to bed on March 31st, and not get up until April 2nd, and pretend that the day did not exist. He doubted if his family and friends would let him get away with that though. And in some way, he felt that to do that would be unfair to Fred. His birthday should be marked in some way, even if George would prefer to ignore his own. And whatever he did, George would be twenty-one, while Fred was forever twenty. Being nine minutes older than Fred was one thing: being a different age from him was almost incomprehensible.

Angelina and Fleur emerged from the stockroom at that moment, declaring that the orders were all packed and that they had earned a treat for working on such a horrible wet morning. George and Ron both welcomed the diversion. George raided the till, and despatched Ron to Bettina Bewlock's for tea ("Not coffee!" Fleur told him firmly) and croissants. On a day like this, they all deserved it.