"And that's when I decided to shag your sister."

"Uhuh." George let his gaze drift to the long window on his right. It had been snowing for nearly six hours and he wondered if they would get another rush of customers of if he should consider closing early tonight.

"Mate, did you hear what I said? I was talking about your sister again. Could you even try to pretend you were listening to me?" Lee Jordan was babbling on about something but George was too busy watching an Auror trudge through the snow. At first he thought it might have been Ron but on closer inspection he was surprised to see the Boy Who Lived stop at the front door of the shop and pound out his boots before entering. Lee followed George's gaze and beamed as Harry stepped through the almost empty store and joined them at the counter.

"'Lo, Harry. What brings you out in this mess?" George smiled at his fellow Gryffindor.

Harry merely shrugged. "I got out of work early so I thought I'd stop by while I was in London. How's the shop?"

Wasn't that a loaded question if there ever was one. George was getting sick of his friends 'stopping by' to see how he was doing. He couldn't tell anymore who was genuinely there to see him or who was just being concerned about him. Witness: Lee Jordan, who seemed to be an ever present leech on his neck. Lee was his best mate but the man was over enthusiastic and too pleasant to be completely real. Yet George couldn't just kick him out since he still wanted the company.

"Harry, you live in London. Don't lie to me. Now, what can I get for you?"

Harry had the grace to blush. "Ummm, yeah….about that. I actually moved."

"Moved?"

"Well, I haven't moved completely yet but I'm in the process of it. Looking at new flats today, actually. You haven't heard from Ginny at all lately, have you?"

Another loaded question. "Why? Is she still not talking to you? Maybe Lee knows something. He keeps talking about how he shagged her once."

Lee just smirked.

George crossed his arms while puzzling Harry's expression. Potter had his Auror robes still on and hadn't bothered to put a cloak over them. If he had been in such a rush to leave work without a cloak why had he walked here? Certainly it would have been faster to just Floo to the joke shop. "Harry, what's going on?"

"Nothing!" He stammered.

"You're lying again. If you're going to be an Auror you're going to have to be harder to read than that." George looked away from Harry to share a bewildered shrug with Lee. Harry noticed the movement and relaxed to lean into the counter before admitting what was bothering him.

"Ginny doesn't like Grimmauld Place."

"Can't blame her, it's a dump." George said without thinking. Harry glared at him. "Right, I know it was Black's house but even he didn't like it there. You can't honestly say that living there doesn't depress you." When Harry didn't answer but only looked glumly at his feet, George pushed a hand through his hair in shame. "Ok, so you're selling the place because of Ginny and now she's mad at you for some other unknown reason and you feel like shite. Am I right?"

"Mostly." Harry continued. "There's also the bit that Ron didn't want to move out so instead of just selling the property I gave it to him."

There was a long pause.

"Wait, back up, you gave Ron a house?!" George stammered.

"Yes."

"My brother, Ronikins. You gave him a house? Your godfather's house!?"

Harry nodded slowly. "After Hermione kicked him out he moved in with me because he couldn't afford rent and I didn't want to live alone. It made sense. But then Ginny didn't want to live with him and me so I thought it would be easiest if we moved out and Ron got to keep Grimmauld Place."

The poor bloke meant well, George was sure, but Harry always had lacked etiquette and tact when it came to these sorts of things. It probably had something to do with being raised by abusive Muggles and living under a staircase for eleven years. Well, that and being the savior of the world certainly made a person extremely generous. Harry would have given Ron his own lungs and kidneys if his brother had asked.

"And now both Ron and Ginny are mad at me." Harry sighed and pretended to be interested in the merchandise on the counter. "I don't know what to do."

"You could give the house to me." Lee Jordan piped in cheerily, obviously trying to lighten the mood. "Just a suggestion." He added once George gave him an angry glance.

"So, I'm guessing that Ron refused." George asked. "You do understand why, right?" Harry grumbled something about pride and honor and George had to stop himself from grinning. "I wouldn't worry over it too much, Harry. He can't stay mad at you for trying to be a good friend. Ginny, on the other hand.."

Harry looked shocked. "What about, Ginny?!" Lee took that as his cue to leave and whistled at a pretty blond girl examining the dungbombs behind him.

"It didn't occur to you that asking her to move in with you might be the reason she's been so distant?"

From the way Harry's eyes widened like pufferfish it was easy to see that the kid knew absolutely nothing about women. Again, George blamed it on the abusive Muggles. Although that didn't explain why Ron was so clueless. How his younger brother had fucked up his chance at living with Hermione Granger, AGAIN, was still a mystery. "At least you aren't stupid enough to run off to Scotland after her." George joked. He laughed until he saw Harry's paling complexion, clearly telling that moving to Scotland was exactly what he had planned on doing.

"Really? That's where you were moving to?"

"NO!"

"Lying again, Mr. Potter. Mad-Eye would've been so disappointed in you."

Lee, always good at timing, picked that exact second to shove Harry closer to George and lean in to whisper at the two of them.

"So George, you know there's Muggles shopping here now?" Lee waggled his eyebrows like his annoying coworkers at the Daily Prophet who worked in gossip.

"Huh?" Harry spun to look but Lee stopped him.

"Don't stare, Harry."

George snickered. "Good one, Jordan. You had us there for a minute."

"I'm serious!"

"Muggles?"

"Yeah, and hot muggles at that." He snagged George by the arm and pulled him around the counter, then pointed him in the direction of the blond haired girl he had been talking to before. "She's in your shop, mate, best go find out why."

One of these days George would have to kill Jordan for his disgusting matchmaking attempts. The man was right though, the girl was very attractive. She was a tiny little thing, even shorter than Gin, with gold chin length hair and simple rectangular glasses. She wore a pair of those bright colored rubber boots that Muggle women were so fond of, but the rest of her outfit was grey.

"George Weasley?" The girl asked him, not even bothering with pleasantries. "Alice Roberts. I'm a detective for the London Police Department. Do you have time for a few questions?"

It wasn't even remotely close to what he thought she was going to say but he couldn't remember the last time he had spoken to a Muggle and had nothing to compare it to.

"I do." He replied. "Although you'll have to indulge me with the knowledge on how you know who I am. It's not often that beautiful strangers walk into my shop and demand to ask me questions."

George prided himself in the ability to charm any woman -and most men- into purchasing lots of merchandise from his store. But this woman wasn't enthused with charm. She wasn't a very cheerful person either.

"Do you perhaps know this man?" She pulled a small photograph out of a folder to show George the face of man that had clearly been dead for a while. He backed up from her immediately, shocked by the sudden change in conversation.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"We found this man's body about two blocks north of here last night. He's approximately 186 centimeters tall and he was wearing long black robes. Nothing of note was found on his person except a few foreign coins, half a sandwich, a curiously carved wooden stick, and surprisingly," she removed another photograph, "a few items from your joke shop." The second photograph was of a handful of dungbombs laid out next to what must have been a Muggle measuring device depicting how large the dungbombs were.

"At the moment we are unaware of the cause of death but it appears to have occurred long before the body was found. It's obvious he was moved posthumously." She handed him the first photograph again and he reluctantly took it. "Does he look at all familiar to you?"

George was speechless. He had never seen this man before, at least, he didn't think so. It was difficult to recognize anything from the picture except that the man had light brown hair and his left eye was swollen shut while the other eye stared blankly out at the camera.

"If it helps, we believe he had a pet owl. A bit unusual, don't you think?"

George smirked at her and handed her back the grisly photograph. "I think that narrows it down to about eighty percent of the blokes I know."

"Eighty percent of the gentlemen you know have owls?" She lifted one eyebrow at him.

"Owls are rather common amongst our folk." George grinned.

"Your folk? Could you elaborate on that please?"

Again he was speechless. He looked behind him where Harry and Lee were watching intently with dumb grins on their faces. When he glanced back, Alice Roberts was giving him a frustrated sneer. "Anything at all you could tell me about the owls?" She said.

"Umm. Nope. That's awful strange though."

"You just said it was common."

"Right, well it was lovely chatting with you. Hope you stay out of that dreadful weather." But as he turned back to his friends she jumped in front of him and blocked his way.

"One moment, Mr. Weasley, do you think you could tell me a bit more about these, um, dungbombs."

"No."

Harry and Lee seemed to notice that something was wrong and made their way over to the woman. She took it as an opportunity to interrogate them as well.

"Excuse me, do you work here too? I'm with the London Police and I'm investigating a possible murder." She took the photo out again and handed it to Lee. "Does this gentleman look familiar to you?"

Lee Jordan was one to have a perpetual smile on his face. Sometimes George wondered if he would develop permanent wrinkles that would force his face into a grin even while asleep. Yet once the photo was in his hands Lee harvested one of his few frowns.

"Hey, this is Jiles Yellowbye. He's a writer down at the Profit." Lee offered. "His brother died in the War. I think he went….OW!" Lee swore and glared at Potter who had obviously just elbowed him in the ribs to shut up.

"The Gulf War?" Alice asked, pulling a small book and Muggle pen out to take notes.

"Uh….yeah, the… uh. .. golf war." Lee commented. He rubbed his ribs and stepped on Harry's foot. The Auror moved away while rolling his eyes.

"Was it an older or younger brother?" Alice continued.

Lee didn't respond. He stared at the photo with a sigh before glancing at George sadly. He looked like he knew the answer but didn't have the courage to say anything. After a moment, Alice spoke again.

"They were twins, weren't they?" She stated as blandly as someone commenting on the wallpaper. Lee nodded. "Interesting. Mr. Weasley, I was told you had a twin brother as well who passed away. You two owned the shop together, correct?"

George suddenly felt very very cold. He looked at the woman again, this time he really looked at her. Were she a witch she would have been too young for a job in investigating murders. Her hair was slightly damp and he assumed she must have been out in the snow for a while. She wrote with her left hand and on instinct George looked at her right sleeve for a wand but there of course wasn't one. How did she know about Fred? Who would have told her?

"Yes, that's right." George quietly mumbled. "He was my business partner."

"Could you tell me how he died?"

At that, Harry snapped out of the shocked silence he had fumbled into and pushed into the woman's face.

"You need to leave." He stated while pointing strongly at the door.

Alice snapped the photo back from Lee.

"Right, this must be hard, I understand." She said with no hint of empathy. Her face remained completely neutral. "But I really do need to have you answer my questions. Perhaps on a different day we can meet and discuss this." She traded the photo for a business card that she pushed into George's hand. "Please contact me if you have any more information and when you feel up to talking." And with that she turned and trampled out the door, her rubber boots squeaking on the wooden floorboards.

"Bloody hell." Lee muttered as he watched her walk down the street through the snow.

George looked at the card that had Alice Roberts' name and job description typed in simple black letters. Beneath her name was a series of numbers and what looked like an address.

"You don't think…." George stumbled for the words. "How did she even get here? Diagon Alley is blocked to Muggles."

"Someone must have let her in." Harry guessed. He grabbed the card out of George's hand. "She looks genuine. But do yourself a favor, mate," Harry sighed and gave him back the business card, "don't try to contact her. I'll have to go back to the Ministry and tell them about the dead writer. They're going to want to know about this girl too. Probably need to Obliviate her. Fuck, I shouldn't have made her leave!"

Harry dashed out the door and yelled out into the street after the woman. George didn't watch to see if he caught up with her and instead looked back down at the card.

"Now that was the weirdest thing ever." Lee said. "You alright?"

George didn't know if he was alright. Talking about Fred was always rough but on the other hand he was perplexed at the short conversation he had shared with the Muggle detective.

"She knows something." George admitted. "She knows something about Fred and she wanted to talk to me about it."

Lee gave another one of his scarce frowns. "You aren't going to try and meet with her again, are you?"

"I might." George said.