Title: A Lid For Every Pot, George Weasley

Author: BooksVCigarettes

Summary: Set a couple of years post-war. Still struggling with the absence of his twin, George Weasley needs some time away from the world he grew up in to heal. Alice Clark wants a flat mate who doesn't want to kill and eat her. It was perfect... Except not really. George/OC Ron/Hermione Harry/Ginny

Chapter Seventeen – Damage Control

Perhaps it was her hair plastered to her head and her eye makeup dribbling down her cheeks in murky rivulets. Perhaps it was the fact that she was slumped fully clothed in the bath. Whatever it was, Alice looked so pathetic he almost couldn't bear to look at her.

George hadn't given much thought to what he expected Alice to look like when the Amortentia antidote finally began to take effect but even if he had, this was unlikely to be top of the list. Once he and Ginny had retrieved Alice from Arlene's flowerbed and the three of them had wrestled the (surprisingly strong) woman up the stairs and into the warm bath that Arlene had poured generous amounts of the antidote into ("It will work twice as fast if it soaks into her skin as well as being ingested," she had said matter-of-factly "Trust me - I once had to bring a cousin of mine around from Amortentia pretty sharpish before she tried to run off with Hemingway, the slimy git.") and the potion had begun to work, it seemed as though all the fight had left Alice. Arlene had also stood over the younger woman and watched her choke back the remaining bottle of antidote with a cheerful bossiness and no-nonsense attitude that put George in mind of Madam Pomfrey. Both she and Ginny had stayed for a while in case Alice got a second wind and George couldn't handle her, but once they were confident that it had worked they had left George to tend to his landlady as she recovered. Arlene had retreated back downstairs to her flat with a kindly smile to George that promised a deferred explanation.

Ginny had hugged him tightly before giving him a stern look and threatening to hex him if he didn't contact her for help should he require it in the night before turning on her heel and apparating back to the flat she shared with Harry.

George went back to the bathroom and surveyed the damage. Everything was soaked from their struggle to get Alice into the bath, and only now did he catch sight of the ragged hole in the shower curtain that Alice had put her foot through as she had fought back. He crouched down next to the tub to get a better look at its occupant. She appeared to be in a daze, her eyes hooded and her gaze directionless. George had never seen a system so saturated with love potion before. There were stories about people overdosing and ending up in St Mungo's, never able to fully recover from its effects, driven mad with an infatuation that they had not chosen to harbour. Once again, George felt a swell of anger at Nott and his stupid bloody scheme. Hadn't he known he might have sent Alice mad? Of course he had known, he just hadn't cared. Slimy git.

The question now was what could he possibly want with a woman who, although in possession of magical abilities, had no idea what to do with them? A woman who knew nothing of the wizarding world? George tried not to get ahead of himself – all that mattered in that moment was ensuring Alice would recover from the Amortentia poisoning. Still, he could not help but dwell on the possibility of what might have happened if the situation had been allowed to develop even further than it already had, the guilt gnawing a hole in his stomach as he stared at the leftover carnage in the bathroom.

"George?" Alice's voice was small and sad and George was jerked from his reverie to see that the woman in the tub hadn't moved, hadn't even turned her gaze upon him.

"Alice?" A long moment passed during which George began to wonder if he had imagined that she had spoken, when suddenly there was that tiny broken voice again.

"What happened?"

George shuffled himself closer to the edge of the bath and reached over to smooth some of Alice's hair out of her eyes. As he tucked the loose strand back, he noticed that she had a tiny set of intertwined hoops that sat further up her ear, away from the soft lobe where she already had several gleaming studs.

"I'll explain when you're feeling better. For now, just try to relax and let the antidote work. You're safe here."

"Will you stay?"

The question caught him off-guard and George wondered if he had heard her correctly "Yes of course, I'll just be down the hall if you need me..."

"No, I mean… please…" Alice turned her gaze on him and her eyes were shiny with confused and frightened tears "Please stay with me."

George felt something in his chest tighten and he could only nod wordlessly. Alice offered him a wobbly smile of thanks before slumping back into her reverie. Suddenly exhausted, George grabbed the only remaining dry towel from the rail and lay it on the floor by the bath as a makeshift seat. Sliding down with a sigh, they lapsed into exhausted quiet.

Neither of them spoke for what felt like days. It was only when George noticed that Alice had begun to shiver and reached for the hot tap to top the bath up that he became dimly aware that they must have been sat there for hours. He sent her a querying glance as the water level rose, ensuring that he wasn't going to burn her with the hot water. She offered him a small nod and he shut the tap off and settled back down. Once again, they settled back into silence.

Eventually it was Alice who broke it "So that was your sister who came to help you today."

George nodded "Yeah, that's Ginny."

"Oh." A moment's pause "Will you tell her that I'm sorry I tried to kick her in the face?"

George huffed a laugh "I wouldn't worry. She gets worse than that out on the pitch."

Alice was silent again for a moment, her eyes trained on her hands as she swirled them absently through the water "I'm... sorry that I tried to kick you in the face as well."

"There was no 'try' about that one," George reached a hand up to his chin unconsciously rubbing the spot that Alice's foot had connected with "That was very definitely a successful kick to the face."

"...And the biting..."

"...Don't mention it."

"I've never so much as tripped someone over before," Alice moaned, reaching up to cover her face with her hands "I'm not a violent person."

"Which is for the best, given how well you can apparently fight," George chided gently "Besides, I think we can safely say that you weren't yourself."

"That's the understatement of the century," Alice sniffed and shifted herself around noisily in the bath trying to get comfortable "Has Daniel been… giving me something? Have I been drugged?"

"In a way," George spoke slowly, taking care to keep his tone measured "The syrup he gave you to put in your coffee was laced with a substance called Amortentia. It… makes you think you're in love."

Alice snorted "Don't be ridiculous, George."

"I know it sounds mad, but..." He sighed "Alice, I need to tell you something..."

And so he did. To the best of his ability, George tried to explain the world he had grown up and taken for granted to Alice. She gazed at him with wide eyes as he talked about wands and potions and Lord Voldemort and the war that had claimed his brother. As he spoke, George felt a strange sensation sweep over him. It was as though he was telling her the story of another life that he was somehow removed from. When he'd finished, he studied her face, awaiting a reaction. Alice stared back, chewing her lip thoughtfully. She was silent for a long moment.

"So you're a..." she trailed off, the sentence hanging in mid-air.

"A wizard." George supplied gently, hoping that this would not provoke an outburst similar to earlier that day.

"A… wizard." Alice repeated, as if testing the word out in her mouth. She sat forward in the bath and rested her elbows on her knees, accompanied by the sound of water rushing from her saturated clothing "And when you say wizard, you don't mean the kind of wizard who dresses up and goes to the park to take part in some bizarre role playing game where he's married to an Elven Queen?"

George gave her a half smile "No."

"So you can do magic?" He nodded. Alice raised her eyebrows, seemingly only marginally disbelieving him "Real magic? Not just card tricks?"

"I'll have you know that my card tricks are second to none."

"Will you show me?"

George noticed that in spite of her peaked interest, Alice had once again begun to shiver. He hopped to his feet and held out a hand to her "Let's get you dry."

Alice frowned down at her sopping clothes "The floor is going to be soaked..." she said mournfully, but took George's hand anyway and allowed herself to be hauled to her feet, streams of water cascading noisily from her garments. She went to clamber out of the tub but George held up a hand to stop her and Alice watched in amazement as he muttered something under his breath. Almost immediately, every drop of water within a metre radius evaporated and Alice was left standing in an empty bathtub, her clothes and hair completely dry. She gaped at him for a moment, their hands still joined.

"Do something else." She whispered, and George tried to ignore the thrilled shiver this sent through him. Alice seemed to bristle with electric energy and he reminded himself sternly that out of the two of them, he needed to be the calm and responsible one. He gave her hand a gentle tug.

"You've had a shock today. You need to take it easy. Let's get you out of the bath."

Alice allowed George to assist her in climbing out of the bath. Once back on solid ground, she went to let go of his hand but then thought better of it, her grip tightening once more as she stared up into his eyes "George, why did Daniel want to give me that potion? What does he want with me?"

George looked down at the young woman whose world had just been turned on its head. She looked exhausted but confused and a little frightened. He gave her hand what he hoped was a comforting squeeze "His name isn't Daniel. It's Nott. Theodore Nott."

"You know him?"

George grimaced "More like hated the sight of him. He's changed a lot; that's why I didn't recognize him at first. He was a few years below us at school and was in with the crowd who worshiped Voldemort."

"The wizard who started the war?"

George nodded, and Alice took a moment to process this. George supposed they must look slightly ridiculous, standing in the bathroom holding hands, inches apart from one another. Their conversation was as hushed as if they'd been stood together in a packed lift.

"But... what could he possibly want with me? I'm no-one." George bit back the urge to reply that Alice Clark was not now and never would be, a no-one. He thought about all of the information she had been pelted with in the last few hours. Would learning that she was in fact a witch herself send her over the edge?

"I'm... not entirely sure what he's up to," he said "But I promise you that he won't get a chance to hurt you again. We'll figure it out together, Alice."

Alice stared up at George, her gaze trained on the quiet fire in his eyes, the fiercely protective look on his face. His hand was warm and strong and calloused and seemed to envelope hers completely. Alice felt a spark of electricity within her and prayed that she wasn't blushing. She dipped her gaze and nodded.

"I believe you."

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