A/N: This chapter is more of a pointless attempt at character-practice than anything, but I'm rather proud and thought I'd add it regardless of the PWP factor.

One final thing: Go listen to "Blue in the Face" by Alkaline Trio, if at all possible. It's my background music.

When I was younger, I don't believe I ever thought my life would be the way it is now. As a matter of fact, most of my little fantasies of the future involved Harry and several children... Which only proves how dreadfully inaccurate my imagination was. Who ever would have guessed that I would no longer fancy dear Mr. Potter after three short years of knowing him?

Certainly not me.

And I wouldn't ever have guessed that my pre-fifth year summer would be occupied by rounds of some Muggle game called Scrabble with Remus Lupin. Neither could I have forseen the seemingly bottomless decanters of firewhiskey he seems to consume during our free time.

The rest of the Order still makes a point of leaving me out, due to the fact that I'm Molly and Arthur's Ickle Baby. There's also the fact that the damage done to my ankle during the Department of Mysteries incident was rather peculiar, and the mediwizards actually recommended a Muggle cast. This, of course, would limit my activities to eating, sleeping, and perhaps reading were it not for Remus.

Sweet, drunken Remus.

I know he plays these games with me out of the kindness of his heart and his own boredom, but I still find it a very interesting thing that a man his age could possibly spend time worrying my entertainment -- or, more accurately, lack thereof. But it seems that whatever purpose he was assigned has been dutifully accomplished, and he runs out of things to do all by himself. Everyone seems to be on a mission now, and even though Harry, Hermione and my brother are not allowed to leave Grimmauld Place, they huddle together oozing secrecy and intrigue.

Remus and I aren't that daft -- we don't really have time to worry what they're up to, because it's not really our responsibility. Dumbledore has told my Scrabble nemesis that he is to stay away from Harry whilst he goes through the tragedy of Sirius' death and the savage age that is sixteen, no matter what fatherly instincts he may have for the boy. I, personally, find this rather distressing. The man has no one, for heaven's sake, and the one person he might found a good, solid relationship with gets ripped from his fingertips before they've even made a connection?

Then again, I suppose that's my part of our oblique little union.

"That's not how you spell methamphetamine," he says, squinting down at the little wooden squares with an accusative look in his blue eyes.

This is the fun part. We get into at least one argument per game, either over my spelling abilities or his lack of sobriety. Stupid man and his alcohol... I'm the only one who has the heart to tell him that his liver will be shot before he turns forty-five, at the rate he consumes it, and he's the only one who dares tell me that I'm using a proper noun and he'll sing "My Favorite Things" purposefully off-key if I don't take the offending pieces from the board.

"How would you know?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. "Indulge yourself after the thirteenth bottle of whiskey, hmm?"

He laughs with a minor slur, and places his index finger on the bridge of my nose with a crooked smile. He says: "You're too cocky for your own good, Miss Weasley,"

I ask him how to spell methamphetamine, then, even though I already know the answer. I've done a lot of reading this summer, mostly schoolbooks and random things found in the Black Family Library. The only problem with the latter of those volumes is that they lean towards the scarier side of literature, and I don't have quite enough courage to peer at the pages of Twelve-Hundred Prudent and Creative Ways to Satisfactorially Disembowel Your Enemies.

Apparently, there's a seperate illustration guide.

Remus shakes his head at me, decides against my challenge and takes another drink of his precious firewhiskey, which is then placed next to him on the creaking floorboards of the upstairs hallway. It's our game room, as no one ever seems to be home, which means there is less of a need for that area. His room is down towards the back of the house, mine is on the ground floor next to a room full of mirrors. I don't know what it's for, but I went in there with Remus the other day and we laughed at our numerous reflections.

"I wonder how you're going to survive," I say thoughtfully, staring down at the word PRETTY (which was his). "All you do is sit here with me, drink and laugh until you claim your lungs are going to explode. Don't you think that's a bit unhealthy?"

He mutters something inaudible, but places a few letter tiles on the board and comments on the weather.

"Beautiful day," he says.

I ask him how he'd know -- he hasn't been outside in nearly three and a half weeks.

"Guessing," he replies, with a boyish grin. "Yesterday you said it was dreary, and gloom can only be followed by something better."

Wise words for a man drunk enough to think he's Queen Victoria. Of course, that was Thursday, but it happens all the same. I asked him once why he never seemed to get hangovers like Dad used to, and he told me that the key to banning a hangover was perpetual inebriation.

"Doesn't that mean that if you ever stop drinking, the hangover could be bad enough to kill you?"

"We'll all die, eventually," he said, and I remember it so well because he looked very much like those pictures of Harry's at that moment. A bit younger, maybe a bit less jaded. "If God wants it to be now, fine. If God wants it to be later, when I've decided to give up drinking and my head feels like it's being trampled by seven-hundred elephants, so be it."

Everyone knows why he does it -- the drinking, I mean. Ever since Sirius fell, he's had this notion stuck in his head that he's completely alone and without a single friend. So, he picked up the habit of drinking and it's a bloody good thing I'm the youngest in the house, because I fear any child below the age of fourteen would become a victim of traumatization once they heard his rendition of "If I Were a Rich Man" from that Muggle show Fiddler on the Roof.

I'm the only one who really disapproves, though. Everyone else barely has time for consolation or pity, but I can sit here all day and recommend other methods of therapy. Journal-writing, for starters, or the old-fashioned discussion of feelings with a relatively close friend. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I consider myself the closest friend this poor man has.

"I'm out of letters," he says with a laugh, and he winks at me as though he finds himself terribly charming. "Which, if you can't do anything, means it's time for you to subtract your remaining... what is it, seven?"

"Seven," I admit, rolling my eyes.

"Seven letters," he continues in that wavy voice of his, with another mocking smile, "into your score, Ginny Dearest, and once again proclaim me the winner!"

I always proclaim him the winner. He knows very well that I'm lying, but he doesn't care. Everyone needs to feel important. I grab my quill and the piece of parchment I've been keeping notes on and carefully subtract the seven letters -- A, R, V, I, E, L, and another A -- from my own points as I add the final word of the game into his.

124, which is me, against 152... which is him. I stare at the parchment for a moment, double-checking the mathematics in my head.

"Heavens, Remus," I say, looking up at him with what he calls my Cheeky Wench Expression. "You've actually done it this time."