I've tried off an on to post updates, not that there have been many, but it seems every time I try, I have broken some other rule and have had my account frozen for some unspecified amount of time. Therefore, chapter 16, which has been on my website for ages, is just now getting posted here, and 17 is coming along for the ride. I DO plan to finish this story, though it's obviously going slow. Thanks to any of you still out there checking in! – Alinora
Chapter 17: A New Year
*****
"I think I'm about to go rather noisily insane!"
Alinora's hands were clenched firmly in her long hair and her eyes were a bit wild as she looked around the living room. Everywhere she looked were piles of stuff: projects George was working on for work, toys for the twins, laundry in various stages of doneness, as well as, she was not ashamed to admit, a number of her instruments. Normally she was able to keep up with things, and George was generally happy to help, but somehow over the past couple weeks things had gotten out of hand.
It didn't help that, in the weeks since Katie had sprung the pregnancy news on them, Alinora had begun experiencing the morning sickness thing. She wasn't really even sure if she should be having morning sickness at this stage, but since they had yet to mention the news to anyone else, she also didn't have anyone to ask.
George also had a number of new projects going on at work. He and Fred had negotiated a wonderful new deal with a muggle distributor, but in order for it to go through; they had to figure out how to make their magical items non-magical. Or at least not obviously magical. Because of that, he'd been spending long hours working on some bugs that kept arising. She was happy he was at least able to work at home, so they were able to spend some time together, but she was getting a bit irritated at constantly stepping on the unsuccessful results of his work. It often caused unfavorable reactions, as shown by the black stain currently covering a corner of the far wall. Yet another thing that needed to be taken care of.
She sighed.
From the babies' room she could hear the muffled sounds of crying and the deeper murmur of George's voice. Both Jeffrey and Ariel had managed to come down with slight colds. Nothing too serious, according to their doctor, but enough so that they weren't sleeping well, which meant that neither were she nor George. This probably wasn't helping her mood either. Her nerves were pretty shot, with everything going on recently, and her mood was touchy at best. So far she'd managed to not take her bad mood out on the family, but if she didn't find a way to defuse the situation, it was only a matter of time.
Half-heartedly, Ali began working on the laundry. Generally, the task of folding laundry could be rather soothing, but it wasn't working this time. Throwing down the towel she'd been folding, Ali spun around and walked over to the mark on the wall. Surely she could at least take care of this and something would be finished!
Pulling out her wand, Ali considered the stain. Perhaps some form of bleaching spell would work… Okay, maybe one that erases things? No, not quite the thing either. Frustration, always so close to the surface these days, was bubbling up again. Trying to lift whatever caused the stain off the wall didn't work, nor did the rather far-fetched idea of making the stain invisible. Finally, after trying to change the stain's color to match that of the rest of the wall, only to have it turn fluorescent pink, Ali collapsed to the floor, buried her face in her hands and began weeping.
"Oh, what's the use?" she moaned, "I can't get anything right these days!"
"That's not true, luv! What's the matter?"
She hadn't heard George reenter the room. He sat down behind her on the floor and wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back towards him until her head was nestled on his chest.
"I'm useless," she said wearily. "I can't seem to get the energy to do anything and I'm so frustrated! I don't know what's wrong with me. Everything's irritating me, but nothing specifically is wrong that I can point to as the reason." Another couple tears rolled down her cheeks. "And I can't get that bloody awful stain off the wall!"
They both sat there in silence for a moment, then softly they both began to chuckle. Soon, they were both laughing in earnest, as the strain of the past couple days was released.
After a while, their laugher began to slow as they slowly brought it under control. Ali leaned back into George's arms and let herself relax.
"Okay, I definitely needed that!" she said with a wry chuckle.
"You and me both," George agreed, "but I think you need a bit more. You need to get away for a while."
Alinora twisted around to look at him quizzically. "Get away? Why?"
"Come on, you've spent the past how many years traveling constantly and over the past four to five months you've barely left the house, let alone Hogsmeade. I think you feel you have to be here and, because of that, you're not taking any time for yourself."
"But I love being here!" she protested, "It's wonderful to actually get to see you all the time and do, I don't know, 'normal' things for a change."
"Yes, but even 'normal' people get out a bit more than you have recently." he teased, hugging her gently. He was about to continue, when a voice issued from the area of the fireplace.
"Knock, knock. Anyone home?" called out a familiar female voice.
"Nope," George called out cheerfully, "we're not home!"
"Look, you red-headed mischief maker, I want to talk to your wife! You've had her long enough…" George and Alinora could hear the humor in the speaker's voice and Ali turned to stick her tongue out at her husband before struggling to her feet.
"And she's calling me a mischief maker?!?" he grumbled under his breath.
"Coming, Sara, dear!" she called out, walking to the fireplace. With a word, the charm blocking the unexpected entrance of visitors to their living room was gone and Sara's head appeared within the confines of the fireplace.
"Much better!" Sara's disembodied head glanced around the room until she caught sight of Ali. "There you are, haven't seen you in ages. What are you, trying to become some sort of hermit, or something?"
"Or something," Ali replied, glancing back at George, who had also now gotten to his feet. "Might as well come on through," she continued, making another gesture that would allow Sara to floo to their home. A minute later, Sara stood in the living room, vainly attempting to brush some stubborn soot from her black pantsuit.
"I'm kidnapping you," Sara finally said, giving up on the soot, "you haven't been out in ages, I want to go out and if I have to spend one more evening avoiding students at Hogwarts to preserve the precious reputation of their bloody Potions Master, I think I'll scream!" Her eyes flashed angrily, but then softened into a smile. "I need a girl's night in the worst way, and I think you do too."
"Yes, she does," broke in George, joining them and putting an arm around Ali's shoulders. She rolled her eyes, but didn't disagree. "In fact, we were talking about that just before you called." He turned Ali to face him and gave her an earnest look, "I really will be fine taking care of the twins alone for a while and, if not, Mum's always happy to pop over and give me a hand."
"Not that anyone seems be asking my opinion, but I'd be happy for a night out. I'll leave whenever." Alinora stuck her tongue out at her husband before turning back to see Sara's amused expression. "I can go whenever, as I'm blatantly not accomplishing anything around here!"
"I'm ready," Sara began, then stopped as she finally noticed what Ali was wearing; "Humm, maybe you should get changed, then we can leave." she finished with a grin.
Ali glanced down at the rather worse for wear outfit she had on and grimaced slightly. "Yes, a change is definitely in order." With that she turned and quickly headed for the bedroom.
As the bedroom door closed behind her, Sara turned to George, a questioning look on her face. "What's going on? I've never seen her like this before."
George was silent for a moment, wondering how much to explain. "I think it's a combination of things. She's home again, married, had two good friends die and suddenly has two young children to care for. I think she feels this is what she's suppose to be doing, in order to live up to Colin and Anna's faith in her, but she hasn't really been getting out much and she hasn't even been doing much with her music. I think that's what bothers me the most, as that's always been really important to her. So much has happened over the past five to six months and I don't think she's worked out how to live with it all. She needs to understand that she's still 'Alinora' and she still has a right to her own life. Getting out with you is a good start, since you guys use to do this all the time before."
"So, the fact that I'm about to take your wife out for a crazy, single-girl's night on the town doesn't bother you?"
"As long as you don't go picking up strange men, I think I'm fine with it," George said, grinning at the mischievous look on Sara's face. "I trust that my wonderful wife will handle herself with her normal social aplomb and limit herself to dancing on table tops and singing on any stage that will allow her on it."
"You really think I ask for permission before getting on stage?" came Ali's voice from behind them. They turned to see her quietly closing the door to the twins' room, an overnight bag slung over her shoulder and wearing a sleek sheaf dress. The contrast in attire and expression from before was amazing and George was happy to see a familiar twinkle back in her eyes.
Ali rejoined then, carefully not commenting on the brief looks of guilt she'd seen on both their faces for an instant. It was obvious that she'd been the topic of conversation, but she couldn't make herself get too upset. She had been in a bit of a slump recently. Okay, maybe a bit wasn't quite strong enough, but, now that she was aware of it, she was more than willing to go along with their plans to get her away from the house for a while. A change of scene couldn't but help her state of mind.
"I'm ready to go if you are," she said nodding at Sara. She turned, threw her arms around George's neck and gave him a long kiss. She whispered a quick "I love you" into his ear before stepping back to link her arm with Sara's. "I'll see you sometime tomorrow, assuming the Girl's Night is over…" With a wink, the two were gone.
In the silence of the living room, George stood considering a few options that had come to mind upon hearing Sara's request earlier. Finally coming to a decision, he found some paper and quickly wrote out a few notes which he then gave to Artemis to deliver. Once that was done, he sat down on the couch to wait for any replies.
*****
George had been waiting for about half an hour before the fire in the fireplace turned green and his sister stepped through.
"You know, there are faster ways to get messages out than by owl," Ginny said, shooting him a withering glance.
"I knew you'd get the word out once Artemis got to you, so why bother?" he replied with an unrepentant grin, getting to his feet to give her a hug. "So, are the others coming?"
"Katie's on her way and you know Mum will be here. Hermione's in class and Ron and Harry are at work. I think Angelina will come, though, as she's about to pop, I don't know how much help she'll be."
At that moment, there was a knock on the door and Molly Weasley appeared by floo. George went to open the door for Katie while Ginny gave their mother a hand.
"That poor girl!" Molly exclaimed upon seeing George. "Why did you take so long to ask us for help? I am fully aware of how difficult it is to take care of two small infants."
"I called as soon as I could, but it's taken until today to finally convince Ali that she wasn't being a horrible person for wanting to get away sometimes and have a life away from 'the family'."
Molly looked somewhat mollified, but might have continued had Fred not chosen that moment to Apparate in, carefully supporting a very pregnant Angelina.
"'Lo all!" he called out cheerfully. "I've brought my beloved beach ball 'round to keep you all company while I run the business my partner is ignoring today." He gave a grunt of pain as Angelina's elbow connected with his stomach and quickly ducked the baby rattle George had chucked at his head.
"Well then, I can see that I'm not wanted, so I'll be off. I'll pick you up this afternoon dear," he said quietly to his wife, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before Apparating out again.
"Well, as it appears everyone's arrived who's coming…" He stopped as knocking was again heard at the front door. Katie, being closest, went to open it, letting in Charlie and Julie.
"Have we missed the fun yet?"
"Nope, we were just getting started. Glad you could join us. Now then, as I was about to say… Thanks to you all for coming. I know most of you are aware that Ali's been under a lot of stress recently and, now that I finally got her out of the house for the night, I wanted to make sure that everything was nice for her return. As I am a helpless male, I have called in extra help," he said, gesturing broadly at the family and friends sitting around him.
After a bit of discussion, Molly headed off to the kitchen to start cleaning in there. She stopped briefly to look at the stain at the wall, muttered something under her breath then, shaking her head in disbelief, left the room.
Ginny and Katie shared a look of amusement as they headed off to the master bedroom to begin restoring order there. Julie helped Angelina to her feet and they were off to the babies' room to keep an eye on them and do some straightening up.
Finally, Charlie and George were alone in the living room of the flat.
"So, what wonderful job have you cooked up for us? You realize that cleaning is not one of my better skills…" Charlie asked, looking curiously at his younger brother.
"You really think I'd assign cleaning chores to us with Mum around? We'd never do it to suit her standards, so I'm not going to bother. No, I have another project out back that I'd like your help with. Something that I've wanted to do for a while." He grinned a bit mischievously and the two of them headed outside.
*****
It had been a very long day, and after his offer to supply dinner for all had been refused, George was happy to collapse on the couch and relax. The twins had been fed and put to bed for the night, the flat was spotless and his surprise out back had worked exactly as planned. Now he only had to wait until Ali came home tomorrow to see everything.
He smiled in contentment as he drifted off to sleep. It was nice to be able to finally do something for her after everything she was constantly doing for them.
"I wonder what trouble those two have gotten into today?" was his last thought as he finally succumbed to sleep.
