"You can't call them instant noodles if you don't make them instantly."

"How do you mean?"

"This bull crap of waiting two minutes for them to cook isn't instant. I should be able to snap my fingers and have an already finished product."

"If you're going to complain you can starve. I'll eat the noodles without you."

George poked at the paper cup filled with half cooked pasta and hot water. It smelled intriguing but he still wasn't excited about it.

"Do you really eat this every day?"

Alice was frantically cleaning her kitchen. It had been a little rude of him to stop by without warning and now the woman was dashing about, scrubbing dishes and putting things away. He'd told her three times he could care less about the state of her flat. He even found it endearing that the detective was a bit of a slob. Someone who spent most of her day at work had little free time to keep a kitchen clean. George could empathize with that.

"Some of us have busy lives and don't have time to make soup from scratch all the time." She snapped from behind a discolored baking sheet she was trying to scour by hand.

"You must cook a little." He pointed out the array of dirty baking utensils strewn about the counter beside her.

"Yes. Sometimes. Next time give me an estimate of your arrival time and I can make you something better than that."

"Better than this? Impossible!" He dunked his fork into the cup shaped brick of noodles which still were too hard to break apart. "And if you started cooking for me regularly I would be reminded too much of my mother. That's part of the reason I like you so much. Because you are the exact opposite of the woman who raised me."

He smiled like the Cheshire cat at a comedy club but Alice didn't even look at him.

"Is your mother a good cook?" She asked him.

George nodded. "If you have six sons you kind of become a decent cook by default. And she didn't just cook for us, mind you, we often had guests over. Mum can cook up a storm if need be. Using magic helps a lot, of course."

"That must have been nice. I wish my family had eaten meals together." She turned the faucet on and rinsed the flat sheet of metal she had been scrubbing.

"Your mum doesn't cook?"

Immediately he wished he hadn't asked. Alice's usual stale face was deeply saddened. It was as if he had asked if her mother had died.

"No, not anymore. She never really did but after the divorce she stopped completely. My stepmum was better at it but I wasn't over for dinner much after Dad married her."

"That's understandable." He watched her put the tray in the drying rack. "Sounds like you aren't a fan of your stepmother."

Could he make her feel even worse? Yes he could. Damn, he was good at making women miserable. George stood up to join her at the sink.

"Nevermind, don't answer that." He told her.

"It's alright." She had started scrubbing a pot rather than take the action of facing him. "It's not that my stepmum is a bad person. She's rather amazing, actually. She takes good care of my father and her kids."

"Ah."

Alice let the pot go into the soapy interior of the sink basin. She dropped her hands in the warm water and slowly ran her fingers over the handles of the pot. "My father isn't well."

Great. He had somehow upheaved some sort of family trauma she didn't need to share. "You don't have to tell me."

"No, this is important. Hell, I know enough about your family history you can know a little about mine."

George put a hand on her hip and pulled her toward him so her back fit against his chest. His chin rested on her shoulder and he waited for her to continue.

"Dad has early onset dementia. It started about five years ago." She said rather flatly while wetting a sponge in one hand.

"Onset what?"

"Dementia. I guess you don't have that in the wizarding world."

"Not that I know of."

"It means his memories are gone. He doesn't know who he is or who any of us are. Sometimes he can't even remember how to put his own clothes on." She squeezed out the sponge and dunked it back in the water only to remove it again to squeeze.

George recalled Harry's tragic story of his encounter with the Longbottom's at St. Mungo's. "I have heard of that happening to people before. Usually from some sort of curse though. I didn't know it could happen to Muggle's too." He wrapped both his arms around her waist. "I'm sorry about your Dad."

She shrugged. "It is what it is. I miss him."

They stood like that for a few minutes, him holding her and her continuing to stare into the sink and mash the sponge between her hands.

"I should tell you," she continued suddenly, "I'm pretty sure it was a curse." He could feel the rumble of her voice through her lungs against his chest. "That did my father in, that is."

George reached for her hands and pulled the sponge from her fingers. He lifted her palms out of the water and walked her backwards from the dishes. "Sit down. I'll get you a towel." He could have charmed the moisture off her skin but figured it was a good time not to use magic.

She sat at the kitchen table after he handed her a dish towel and took the chair beside her. Alice still wouldn't look at him. She rubbed the towel in and out of her fingers the same as she did with the sponge.

"So, you were saying?" He prompted her.

"I think it was a curse. Well, now that I've learned more about wizards and such I guess it was more of an attack."

If the idea upset her she gave no facial expression of her discomfort. The only hint that the woman was anxious even a bit was the way she wrung her hands. He hadn't known her long, but he could tell this was as emotional as she got.

"It isn't a coincidence that I'm focused on cases that deal with magic." Alice pointed out. "I had recently started university when my dad and stepmum started acting strangely. I wasn't living with them anymore so it took me a bit to notice. Dad stopped phoning me and they both stopped going to work. I didn't hear about it until my little brother's school reached out to me. His grades had started to drop significantly and when his teachers tried to contact my father and his wife they didn't get any response. I was their next line of contact." Alice dropped one hand away from the towel and passed her palm across the table before locking her fingers into George's grasp. He held tightly onto her. "I came home as soon as I could but by then it was too late. The house was a wreck; moldy food everywhere and piles of filthy laundry. My little brother and sister weren't there. It was clear when I got there that Dad wasn't himself anymore. I don't want to get into details but he had let himself go. Badly. It had probably been weeks since he'd bathed. Not only did he not recognize me but he didn't know how to speak really. He'd talk in fragments of words." Her hand that wasn't holding the towel was starting to dig a tight grip into the bones of George's fingers. It hurt but he wasn't about to tell her to loosen her hold.

"What happened to your stepmum?" He asked, assuming that whatever it was must be worse than dementia. Unfortunately he was right about that.

"I've never agreed with labeling people as 'mental' but in this case I don't know how else to describe it. She had practically gone mad. It seemed she had been getting by, at least. She got the kids to school and for the most part fed them but either than that there wasn't much left of her. She had quarantined herself to the bedroom and wouldn't do anything except cry and watch the telly. Unlike Dad her mind was still all there and functioning but it was as if she had given up on everything around her. I think she was scared."

George allowed Alice to squeeze his hand to death a bit longer before gingerly trying to release her fingers with his other hand.

"What made you think they were attacked?" He contemplated.

"We sent them both to the psychiatric hospital right away." Alice admitted. "Dad didn't show any sign of improvement but Jennifer, my stepmum, had a chance. Her and my brother and sister went through weeks of therapy and for the most part are doing much better now. Yet Jenn still has what the doctors believe to be delusions. She believes she was brutally assaulted by a mob of black robed men in silver masks."

It was George's turn to squeeze her hand into a constricted ball of pressure. The acid in his stomach churned and he was glad he hadn't eaten the cup of instant soup in fear of vomiting it up now.

"Silver masks?" He was able to choke out.

Alice nodded. "Does that sound familiar?"

"The Death Eaters wore silver masks and black robes."

It didn't phase her. She simply nodded and picked up his cup of noodles to stir. He supposed if you weren't raised to fear Death Eaters then hearing that they were the culprits of your stepmother's torture and probable rape didn't affect you.

"So that's why you started looking into magic related crimes?"

"Pretty much. It took a while for me to start believing Jennifer's story. She was so sure that she had been abused by men with super powers, and there was no physical evidence that they had been there. It didn't help that her story changed so much from day to day. Sometimes she would say it was two or three attackers and other times upwards of thirty. Her memory was shaky and she couldn't get the details right. She still can't."

Alice stood up and moved to the icebox where she retrieved a couple bottles of condiments and returned to the table. Without asking him she started spooning a red sauce and a bit of mayonnaise into the noodles.

"Um, gross. What are you doing?"

"It's better this way." She licked a dab of the mayo from her thumb before passing the soup. "Try it. If you hate it I can eat this one and make you a fresh one."

He didn't hate it. Actually, it was rather tasty considering he'd expected something far worse.

"Do you have any idea why my father's family was chosen to be attacked?" She dropped the question like a sock full of shite on a white marble floor.

He put the fork he had been holding down and looked at her. "No. A lot of the attacks on the Muggles were probably just random."

She didn't even frown. Instead, Alice pulled the cup of soup out of his hands and stole three bites with her own fork.

"This is really bad, sorry. I'll order some delivery. You want curry?"

He took the soup back from her. "I like it. But if you got curry I wouldn't complain."

It was impressive to see her place an order for food on her flip phone. Muggles might not be able to make noodles instantly but their quick communication abilities were astounding.

"It will be here in forty minutes." She returned the phone to her pocket. "Finish your soup fast, I want to have sex."

George spit out the mouthful of half chewed noodles back into the cup he had scooped them from.

"What!?"

"Or you could not eat the rest of it now that you've spit up in it." She said with a shrug. Not even giving him a chance to put the cup down she stood and pushed his chair back from the table so she could pounce on him, straddling his waist with her legs.

Normally he wouldn't have complained but this was a little ridiculous. He had not slept with Alice yet, only some heavy kissing which was back on the evening of their first date.

"Hang on." He wrapped an arm behind her and leaned forward to set the instant noodles on the table. She took that as an opportunity to start kissing his neck. "I'm getting the feeling that you want to use sex to distract yourself from our previous conversation."

"And that's bad?" She whispered. The movement of her lips against his skin as she spoke made George shudder.

"It could be but," he had to pause to breath as Alice's hips started to sway in a steady riding pulse. "Fuck, don't…"

"Don't what? Don't do this?" Slender hands pushed beneath his jumper and removed the cumbersome clothing from his chest. She gripped onto his bare shoulders after depositing the jumper on the floor and began gyrating her hips against him even harder.

"Slow...slow down." If she kept moving like that he wouldn't last another thirty seconds.

"Typically this is better without pants on." She remarked.

It took about two seconds for him to get the rest of his clothes off. Alice joined him in nudity just as quickly and once again pinned him beneath her on the kitchen chair.

"Alice, please." He moaned. He felt her mouth smile against his neck.

"Guess I talked you into it? That was easy."

It ended sooner than he would have liked but they were both too worked up to last long. After a moment to recover their breathing, he decided to kiss her for the first time that night. Her mouth tasted like instant noodles.

He could have kissed like that forever but eventually she dismounted him, releasing him from her warmth.

"You're going to get yourself all hard again." She reached to the floor to retrieve her knickers, shirt, and pants. Alice didn't wear a bra.

"And that's bad?" He said, echoing her previous statement.

She grinned slightly. "Only because the food will be here any minute. You want a beer?"

"Sure."

He clumsily stood and attempted to put his clothes back on with a little grace.

Alice padded to the icebox and had two beers in hand when she came back to him.

"Is your brother still staying with you?" She asked after twisted the caps off the bottles. It was like they had finished having a cup of tea instead of screwing each other silly two seconds ago.

George paused to gather his thoughts. Ron's predicament was something he had brought up briefly a few days ago. He was a bit surprised she had remembered it.

"Yeah. He'll probably be staying for a while. Harry's really mad. I don't think I've ever seen him that mad before. And Ron's done a lot worse things in the past. He must have really hit a nerve."

George had met up with Harry the day after his row with Ron. Harry wasn't able to pinpoint exactly what had set him off. Getting pushed into a fireplace headfirst was definitely part of it, but George guessed there were deeper issues that had been plaguing Ron and Harry's friendship for months.

"Is Ron going to be concerned if you don't come home tonight?" Alice sipped her beer.

"If that's your way of asking me to spend the night it isn't very subtle."

"Subtlety was never one of my strong points."

George laughed loudly from the bottom of his belly. "No, I have to agree with you there."

"So, are you staying?"

She looked so innocent in her pink sleeveless top and baggy cotton pants, her chin in one hand while the other held the beer in her lap. You would never know she'd just fucked his brains out a minute ago.

"Depends, do you want me to?"

"This is me not being subtle. George, I'd like you to stay over."

He knew he had a dumb grin on his face like a child being brought to Honeydukes for the first time. He tried to hide it by drinking the beer but it probably didn't work.

"I'd love to. Ron will have to survive the night without me."

"Good."

When the curry delivery boy eventually showed up Alice and George were tangled together in her bed. Thankfully they still had their clothes on when they answered the door but the Muggle who brought the food wasn't fooled. He took one glance at their mussed up hair and flushed faces and rolled his eyes.

"Honeymoon stage, huh? Enjoy it while it lasts, lovebirds."

Alice didn't tip the man at all.

"Rude bastard!" She yelled and flipped off the closed door where the delivery boy had been. It was the most fire she had shown all night. Even more so than the sex.

George wanted to rip her clothes off again and rutt her into oblivion against the door.

"Before you get any more ideas I want to eat first." She commented. "Then we can finish whatever fantasy you're coming up with right now."

The curry was probably delicious but in the morning he didn't remember much of the dinner part of the night.