A/N: cheesy
story. Oh well. Enjoy.
DISCLAIMER:
I own nothing. I'll pretty much
leave it at that ;-)
Magic
By Jess
Chapter 1:
"We absolutely,
positively, definitely cannot hire just some random person to work for us."
George Weasley let out a
deep sigh. This conversation wasn't
going anywhere. "Think about it, with
the amount of customers coming in we spend most of the day just working the
registers. If we could hire at least
one other person to do that for us then we could spend more time in the
'development office'." George was
referring to a small room behind their little shop where he and his twin
brother spent countless hours, well, exploding things.
Fred tapped the tip of his
wand against his forehead in frustration.
"We could use some new, er, products.
But we can't sacrifice the stability and safety of Weasley Wizard Wheezes
just to have a little more fun. To hire
another person would mean paying them wages.
We just cannot afford it. Stop
looking at me like that, this is not a joke."
"But wasn't that what this
business is all about? It's a joke
shop, Fred. We're not running the
Committee of Experimental Charms, we are living our dream! Lighten up!" He leaned in towards his twin brother. "Fred, we're in our prime.
Soon enough we'll just be the old gits who bother little kids with their
toys."
Fred stroked his shortcut
red beard for a moment. As if he had
just remembered something important, he jumped up and stared at his watch. "I've got to go. Promised Angelina I'd pick up dinner on the way home." In several long strides, he had reached the
door. He grabbed his cloak on his way
out, but before slamming the door behind him he turned back to George. "We'll finish this later." And with that he was gone.
George sighed from
frustration and walked towards the back room, a place where he could always
find comfort and support, turning the lights in the store off as he went. He sat down at his little desk in the corner
of the room, right next to Fred's. Both
were heavily cluttered with mail, colorful sheets of parchment, and gags that
they had been experimenting with. Out
of habit, George looked at the various family pictures on his desk. His eyes paused at one of he and his
brother, back in the old school days.
They were so young, so- well maybe not so- innocent. He looked back and forth between the two
young boys, identical in so many ways, unlike today. Today they could easily be defined as two separate individuals,
and were never confused. Next to it was
a picture taken only three years after their graduation, at the opening of
Weasley Wizard Wheezes. Fred had by
then grown his beard, and George too looked much older.
The last picture on his
desk was one taken only a month before, at the Weasley family Halloween party,
a tradition since all of the children had graduated from Hogwarts. It was taken back at the burrow, and the
entire family could be seen posing in front.
At the far left, his mother and father were waving frantically at him,
his mother pausing every now and then to wipe a tear from her cheek in
happiness. Next to his father stood
Bill with his twelve-year-old red head daughter Molly, named after their
mother, whom Bill was raising on his own after a brutal divorce. Charlie was next to him, looking keen and
intelligent, yet much aged since his dragon fighting days with his wife Kelsie
by his side.
Ron and Hermione, the
newly weds, were sitting in the grass beneath them. George couldn't help but laugh at the looks Ron was stealing at
Hermione, who was looking radiant. 'Puberty
struck her well' he remembered Fred telling him so many years ago. At the far right, Ginny sat in a lawn chair
next to Percy, who was on the grass with Patricia, his 'colleague' as he said
although she was far more after six years of dating him. Ginny's belly was somewhat swelled, nothing
compared to how large it was now. Harry
could be seen occasionally peeping back into the picture after running off to
get her ice, pineapple, or fried chicken as her heart desired. Ginny and Harry were so happy, so in love,
and had been since not long after their Hogwart's graduation.
George remembered back to
their wedding only three years before, the most beautiful he had ever been to,
and how hard his mother had cried on his shoulder when his father had gone to
dance with the bride. How hard his
mother had cried on his shoulder when Ron danced with the bride, and Harry
danced with Hermione. How hard his
mother cried on his shoulder when broom kissed bride, heck, how hard his mother
cried on his shoulder the entire ceremony and reception.
George looked down to the
bottom of the family picture. There, he
sat on the grass with Fred and Angelina.
Angelina sat off to the side as Katherine, Trisha, and Georgia, their
three little girls, climbed all over the two twins. The children were beautiful, all with flaming red hair like their
father. If ever he envied Fred for
anything, it was his children, his wife, and his happy family. George was the only Weasley who sat alone in
the picture, which he reminded himself of every time he looked at it.
'I could have married any of them if I wanted
to. I just… didn't want to.' George winced at the reminder of his long
line of failed relationships. 'I didn't
love them, not like I should have.' At
this, his stomach churned in hunger causing him to get up and close the joke
shop, grabbing his cloak as he magically locked the entrance. The December frost nipped at his nose and
ears as he walked down Diagon Alley in search for a place to eat.
At the end of the new
expansion of shops where at the end the joke shop was situated, he turned the
corner and entered the main road of Diagon Alley. But before he had fully passed the corner, he ran into something,
or someone, hard.
To be continued…
