Chapter Two
A/N: I want you all to know that the chapters posted on this site are first drafts, if you would like to read the final drafts of each chapter please say so in your review and leave and e-mail address, I will e-mail you the sites where the finals are posted. Now, knowing that these are first drafts any suggestions or critiques are welcome.
Livetoeat06: well, I've never been to new York or met a New Yorker, which is why I chose a Minnesotan, because I have had contact with one of them and they are very strange people indeed. Who falls for Mira? We'll have to wait and see won't we?
Tropicalpunch9812: One of the weirdest stories ever? Lol, hardly! I have read stranger, though I'm not sure that's a good thing?
OrchDork18: Me too!
Yeux-ombrages: Thank you, I sat down and made a list.
Iamjacksbrokenx3: Thank you.
Yuki Asao: Thank you! I'm very worried about the boys being out of canon.
Inside the storage room, which the boys had painted a vivid orange (not that you could tell through most of the boxes) hung what appeared to be an old grandfather clock. In actuality it was a brand new grandfather clock, but the Weasley boys were disinclined to buying anything that looked new, save clothes that is. The clock began to chime and Mira looked up in surprise, what time is it? She thought wildly, but like most magical things the clock's answer was sarcastic, Past your bedtime.
"It is not!" Mira protested angrily, quietly, but angrily. "I'll have you know that I am a grown woman and I will not be told to go to bed by a clock!" Her blood was boiling, the afternoons work, accompanied by lack of food and the late hour was causing her to be a little irrational, key words being 'a little'…
"Mira, are you fighting with the clock?" Georges amused voice floated through the drafty storeroom. For a moment Mira was considering yelling that she was perfectly same and would never argue with a clock, but her rampage was cut out early by a giant, jaw popping yawn.
"Mhmmm…" Was the only reply he got, she began to haul another cage of pygmy puffs out onto the floor. The curls of her hair were beginning to droop, a sign George recognized as fatigue, along with the fact that she kept yawning and her eyelids continually fluttered closed before flying open again.
"Where are you staying Mira?" George asked nonchalantly, planning to throw her over his shoulder and floo her home.
"A' th' Leaky." Her speech was inhibited by the fact that her mouth was open and in taking air again. Her wintergreen eyes were closed, which was why she didn't notice George sticking a vial of what she now knew to be called, 'Out Like a Ton of Bricks' (which was in fact nothing more interesting than sleeping dust) under her nose. Like most people, she blinked for a moment before tipping over. Fred walked in as George caught her.
"What cha up to?" he asked as he yawned, completely ignoring the fact that George had just knocked a girl out.
"Nothing much, it appears that she was staying a' the' Leaky," he paused to yawn.
"Can't have tha'." Fred agreed. So the boys sent for her things and set up a hammock in one corner of the upstairs room.
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Mira was awoken by the smell of bacon, the sound of pots being moved and the sound of large feet traipsing across floors. With a start she sat up, causing the hammock to swing precariously. Mira shrieked as the room swayed beneath her, or what she thought was the room swayed. "Good morning Starshine! The earth says hello!" A carrot topped boy with laughing brown eyes was grinning at her from across the room. What in the effing hell…Where am I? Who are these people. Shit, shit, shit shit shitshitshitshitshitshit- oh. Okay, Fred, George, twins, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and all that. Okay. Momentary panic having subsided Mira endeavored to get out of her bed, sling, hammock, thing. Her endeavor failed miserably, for she hit the floor with a resounding thud that caused everything in the room to shake a bit.
"Takes a bit'o practice, that does." George said amiably. Mira nodded as she made her way over to what she assumed was the kitchen table. It too was painted neon blue, making it the center piece in a room of glaring white. Windows where exposed to Diagon Alley, and Mira was loathe to notice that they streets had yet to hold any life at all.
"What time is it?" She asked as she turned to the coffee pot, Coffee…yet another one of those lovely Muggle things.
"Urg, early." Fred said mournfully, causing Mira to glance to the clock, which read 'Rise and Shine' and then had a quaint picture of a rooster on it.
"Now children, it's a lovely morning!" George said, to all appearances being obnoxiously happy at a very early hour. His outburst was met with glares that could have peeled paint and with a sigh he sat down as heavily as the rest of them. "You're right, morning time sucks." At the same time the fireplace near the staircase flashed green and a dumpy woman with the same flaming red hair stepped out. Her eyes landed on Mira and she sucked in air in the fashion of a woman slapped.
"Who are you? What are you doing with my boys? Both of my boys? Have they kidnapped you? Have you eaten? And what are you doing with my boys? Are you sleeping with them?" The large woman's wild, unconnected rampage had reached a volume and pitch that only dogs could hear.
"I-ah-um-I…" Mira was stuttering, her brain had frozen, stopped, it was no longer functioning. This woman had shocked Mira to silence.
"Mum we've talked about this! I'm not into that!" George protested meekly while laughing hysterically.
"Good for you!" Mira muttered. "And I am a woman, not a girl, dumb ass. And pardon me, ma'am, but I do have standards. I do not just randomly sleep with people, much less two people who happen to be twins!" Mira shuddered before she continued. " And no I have not been kidnapped! Is that what you think of your children? I work for these two. That's all. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to do just that!" Mira pushed past the larger woman and stormed down the stairs, clad only in the overlarge t-shirt she had woken up in, which was a puzzle to be figured out later.
"Mom!" both boys raged in unison, "how could you?"
"She's just our employee." George said, the voice of reason for one of the few times in his life.
"Just an employee who happens to be very pretty and half naked?" Molly asked snidely.
"She was covered!" Fred protested angrily.
"Mum, honestly-" George began.
"Why is that girl living with you?"
"Because we can't pay her until after the store opens and she was staying at the Leaky, and their rooms are overpriced and pint sized," George said as he pulled on his boots.
"So she's living with you?" Molly asked incredulously.
"Yes mum. She is. Now, I'm going downstairs to try and keep our manager, I'll see you later," he kissed her cheek. "And I love you mum, but you're bloody insane." George smirked and went down the stairs, his heavy dragon skin boots making the newly hewn stairs echo.
"Fred…" Molly rounded on her younger twin.
"Hi mum, it's nice to see you. What brings you here at this ugly hour of the morning?" he asked politely, submerging the urge to roll his eyes at his mother.
"You tell George that I will not be spoken to like that again," and with that his infuriated mother disappeared. Fred leaned back in his new pine chair. His legs were sprawled out on either side of the seat and one arm was hanging off of the back of the chair. The other arm was rubbing his slightly fuzzy chin. He rolled his eyes and shook his head before he stood.
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"So that was Molly Weasley, our dear mother," George said as he walked into the store room. Mira held the notebook that she had commandeered from them yesterday. In it she had written all of the things that they were selling, she called it an inventory. The boys had handed her a giant bin full of what they said was inventory. She had looked at them and walked off with their notebook.
"She's lovely," Mira said with a frown and a nibble on the end of her pencil.
"Yes, well, she loves us, and she's scared that we'll fail, and a little stressed out with You- Know- Who running around," he said as if that made all of the sense in the world.
"So she's worried about you, appears in your apartment and yells at me, and assumes that we're having a threesome?" Mira was appalled.
"Yup, that's about it," George said with a smile.
"That's insane."
"That's my mother," again he was smiling.
"And I thought my parents were insane," she muttered to herself.
"She's not that bad once you get to know her."
"I'm sure… What's this about You-Know-Who?" she asked, successfully changing the subject.
"The usual, 'cept he's got his body back, is terrorizing Harry, raping, murdering and pillaging. But of course he's a great bloody genius so he's doing it all without drawing Ministry attention. Either that or the guys at the Ministry are bumbling, babbling, baboon's."
"Really?" Mira was honestly intrigued. No one in the states had ever paid much attention to Englands trouble with You-Know-Who. His activities hadn't concerned them, he'd never once turned his eye to America, and the American's had never protested. George was intrigued that she was intrigued.
"Yeah. It's been great fun for…well, ah…" He stumbled on his words and was at a loss…She could be a spy George. A spy…You can't trust her yet. "Well that's a topic for another day…Midsummer's this weekend," he said nonchalantly, pretending that he hadn't changed the conversation.
"And?" Mira asked, immediately wary.
"You should come with us."
"Nu uh," Mira wasn't stupid; she was going no where near that woman again.
"C'mon, you're going to be working with us, living with us, my mum cooks better than the queens chef…" Mira looked at him carefully. She hadn't eaten well in weeks; she hadn't eaten at all in a few days, so a home cooked meal was very enticing. Visions of mashed potatoes and gravy floated before her face, stuffing cooked to the proper golden brown and seasoned to give it those wonderful speckles of hunter green clouded her senses. Plates of roasted chicken danced past her eyelids.
"I'll think about it." She finally murmured, already delving back into her notebook, calculating sums took a bit of work, and Mira didn't trust calculation spells, her aunt didn't use them, so neither would she. George rolled his eyes and began placing items on the shelf by hand. "Ya could just witch them up there ya know." She was smirking again, and he was looking a bit shell shocked.
"And you didn't mention that yesterday because?" he asked in a very Malfoy tone, one hip jutting out with his hand resting lightly on it.
"I didn't think of it."
"I'll bet you didn't," he growled pathetically. Mira didn't find him the least bit threatening. He was really like one of those small, fuzzy dogs. The kind that yap and nip and growl but can't cause real damage.
The rest of the morning was spent magically placing objects on shelves, taking inventory and pricing items in Mira's notebook. Around eleven an owl was chases onto the floor followed by an angry Fred. The owl took one look at Mira and dropped a red letter on her notebook before flying back out the door. Mira looked at it, flicked it opened and turned to examine the shipment of canary creams that had to be enchanted still.
"Miracle Grace Christian!" an angry voice rang out; Fred and George were confused while they tried to determine if the voice was male or female. "ARE YOU IN ENGLAND? BECAUSE IF YOU ARE WE'RE COMING TO GET YOU! I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT YOU LEFT WITHOUT SAYING GOODBYE! YOU'RE GETTING TO BE AS BAD AS YOUR BROTHER! WE DID NOT PAY TO SEND YOU TO SCHOOL FOR YOU TO BE A WAITRESS! YOU COME HOME RIGHT NOW OR WE'RE COMING TO GET YOU!" the voice stopped and Mira continued as if nothing had happened. She wasn't very surprised, as she had mentioned earlier, her parents where a bit insane. They liked to think that their children would do as they were told, and usually their children did, but on this occasion Mira had done what she wished, which was the opposite of what they wanted.
"Miracle?" George asked with a snicker.
"Christian?" Fred asked. "Ain't that a contradiction, seeing as you're a witch?" Mira laughed for a minute before glaring dangerously.
"Only slightly, and if either of you calls me Miracle I will castrate you." She winked and smiled winningly, reminding the boys of a supermodel with a secret. They grinned back at her, completely unfazed by her death glare.
"Never again Mirac-" Mira's foot connected solidly with Fred's shin. He howled and bounced for a moment, knee pulled up by his hands. The girl merely smirked and continued with her work.
Two hours later the boys had gone to do something that had to do with vanishing powder. Mira was standing behind the counter, programming the register, her wand flying in intricate patters over it while she spoke the price values. The front door opened and Mira paused, wand pointing at the door. The boys never entered through the front door, everyone went down the alley and in through the back door.
A dark skinned male with Quidditch muscles up the whazoo walked in the door, frowning at a reporter who tried to get a picture of the inside of the shop, as he entered. He had an air about him that stated he had an overwhelming personality. "Is George here?" he asked as he looked around the store, clearly interested in what was on the shelves.
"No," she said after a moment, "He and Fred are off doing something that involves vanishing powder. You're Lee?" she asked after a slightly disappointed look crossed his face. The question came out of her in a slightly skeptical fashion. The twins had talked of a few people, Angelina, Lee, Harry, and Katie. Logical reasoning had caused her to leave out Angelina and Katie, and since Harry was sure to have a scar on his forehead she ruled him out as well.
"Yeah." Mira cast her last spell and began putting her papers back in their proper order before stepping out from behind the register.
"Honey, now, don't take this the wrong way, because you do look excellent, but where are your pants?" he asked, slightly intrigued, and more than slightly shocked. But his reaction had nothing on Mira's.
"Oh bloody hell!" unconsciously her vocabulary was already adapting to the things that she heard Fred and George say. She frantically danced around, looking at herself. "Whose shirt is this?" Her movements stilled. "I don't know whose effing clothes I'm wearing!" she shrieked, and looked at Lee with wide eyes. He just looked at her knowingly.
"My dear, I have had that problem. I know exactly how you feel," he nodded sagely and Mira gaped at him before running up the stairs. "Doll, what I am supposed to do?" He called.
"I dunno, straighten shelves!-- or something," she muttered as she dashed up the newly hewn pine stairs. "What am I wearing? Where did these come from? Who dressed me? I am going to murder those boys!" she cried. Upstairs she threw on an army green tank and loose jeans she had stolen from her brother years ago. A piece of rope served as her belt.
When she emerged downstairs the two boys she now claimed as hers and Lee stood in the middle of the room, laughing and carrying on as boys do.
"Whose clothes was I wearing?" She slid her hands into her back pockets to conceal her nervousness. The gesture was lost due to the continual shifting of her weight from foot to foot. Fred grinned, because she agreed to go out with them of because he was amused that she had no idea what had happened the night before.
"Mine, don't you remember doll?" He smirked, the smirk, the smirk that Mira was beginning to find sexy. He walked towards her, his heavy boots thudding ominously on the floor. His entire body seemed to be thrown into this sex-god swagger that made Mira's nervous movements increase exponentially. His wiry frame slid sideways, causing his clothes to catch on his body and highlight parts of him Mira never would have thought of examining. Red hair blew back from a face that clearly stated 'sexy'. He halted, scant inches from her face. "Oh come on doll, the whiskey, the drinking games, George and I are very good a' drinking games you know." His whispers ghosted across her face, causing her to shiver.
"Um, actually Fred. I don't remember…" she was frowning, worry lines crossing her otherwise unmarked face. She bounced a little on one foot, chewing on her bottom lip. Her weight slid from toe to heel, back and forth, the slow rocking meant to stimulate her brain into finding a memory that wasn't there. Her movement shifted, rocking sideways, pressure sliding from the outward sides of her feet to the inward. The bones in her feet crackled, gliding against each other in a motion not at all foreign to them.
Fred's smirk increased in it's intensity, he had not been the Prankster Prince of Hogwarts for any old reason. He and George had discovered they had the great talent of storytelling, they could spin a yarn that would have made the great bard's of old twitch in envy. Their stories were as detailed as an army regiments list of supplies, and with so many details imbedded in the tale how could their teachers not believe them?
"Yeah, you know," his voice came out of his lovely mouth in a desperate whine, perfect, "We finished with the pygmy puffs, and somehow you managed to get covered in that glittery dust they give off. I walked up to you with a damp towel and wiped it off of your face, kind of like this," his hands were ghosting over her cheek bones, light feathery touches that made Mira want to swoon or scream and stomp on his foot. As she was undecided she did neither. "And then I got really close, like this," he moved his face in closer, so that his nose was perhaps a centimeter from hers, and her eyes went slightly cross-eyed if she attempted to focus on one part of him for too long. "And I told you that you're beautiful. And you said 'thank you', and asked if I knew any drinking games." Mira's brain was going about a hundred kilometers a minute, wait, I asked what. Fucking idiot. And she stomped on his foot, digging her heel into the bones, right below his ankle. Then and truly infuriating thought hit her, could he feel her bare foot digging into him through those blasted boots? Her knee rose of its own accord. Periodically she lost control of her limbs if she was experiencing a strong emotion. The hard bone of her knee connected solidly with the tender flesh known as a mans inner thigh, also known as, close but no cigar. Which was Mira's knee's intent, it had only wanted to warn, not permanently damage.
Fred's howl ricocheted off of the glass and bare cement walls. George and Lee snickered, a sound akin to long grass swaying in the breeze. Mira's lips twitched upwards, but she refused to smile. "I don't participate in drinking games, I also don't drink cheap whiskey, I prefer wine, Bailey's, or nothing at all, thank you very much." She said, lips still drawn in a tight, straight line. She turned on one bare heel and strode to the back room, her dignity thrown about her like a great fur cloak.