Fred Weasley had woken up two weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts in what otherwise would have been a sterile white room if not for the streamers and baloons magically strewed about the place; something George would later claim responsibility for as "no bloke who spends two weeks in a coma from a curse deserves to wake up to bland scenery".

He then had spent the next week —when he wasn't being fussed over by his mother (or George who would deny any level of fussing to the extent of their mum)— being poked and prodded by all manners of healers from St Mungos. Only for at the end of the week to have them stand him up and hand him his wand with the instruction to cast the simplest spell he could think of.

And he did, or well he tried. And when it had failed to produce he'd tried a different spell, and another, and one more for good measure. Finally, in a last try of desperation he'd just swished it the way he had when he'd first held the dogwood wand several years ago stood beside George in Ollivanders shop. He'd pointed it out, flicked it, and back then had produced a shot of fireworks from the tip that exploded a stack of wands that he would say were already pretty treacherously sacked in his opinion.

And he'd tried it again then and there in that hospital room and watched in the quiet as nothing came out of it.

Gone squib was the gist of all the babble the healers had spouted after that little experiment. Apparently something that can happen with particularly nasty curses, perhaps the result of his magic getting all eaten up in trying to keep himself alive against the curse that'd knocked him into near death.

Sucked it all away till he was as good as muggle.

Which, Fred laughed off as he had to. What good was wallowing? Really, so he laughed it away, joked that with his new muggle status he was sure to be dads favorite now. And tried not to let on how different it felt, how he could tell that the bit of magic that had once always been there was now missing.

Eventually he was let home, and spent a few weeks indulging mums fussing by letting her keep him at the Burrow. But the war was finished, sure a few death eaters were still being chased about by aurors, and plenty of trials had yet to conclude. But Fred was more than ready to move the hell along. And George was too.

And what better way to celebrate the end of a war than reopening the joke shop in Diagon Alley?

It was good, they got fixed up and ready to go within two weeks. And the grand reopening had been a stellar event, even made the Prophet. And Fred was happy to see the success and the smiles that came with it.

Of course, it all came with a bit of a struggle. For as soon as the shop had been reopened Fred had been left face to face with the big neon fact that he couldn't use magic. It had been there, that fact, before that. But it had been lessened with the lack of necessity, mum fussed, George fussed, and Fred had relished a bit in the attention. Until the shop opened, and he could no longer participate in the actual magic of it all.

George tried to help, told him to figure out the ideas and he'd handle the magic. Simple as that. And Fred did, he spent more than a dozen all-nighters puzzling out different products or just improvements to past projects. And the next day George would go about the magic bit of it, the production part.

But it wasn't quite the same. Fred would hover and advise, but he missed the feel of the magic in his hands. The creation of it. The want to feel it buzzed in the empty spot where his magic was missing.

But he ignored it, dived hard into the storefront and the ideas.

Angelina and Lee helped about the shop too after the war. Lee more so in the customer service aspect, having a natural charm for gab as always. And Angelina took to assisting George in the production aspect.

Which of course, naturally, had lead to the development of Fred walking in one day to the two sucking face on the sofa of their flat.

And Fred, naturally, hadn't been able to just let George go with nothing for that.

"Really mate? You call yourself my brother," he'd shaken his head after Angelina had departed. "Getting with my ex."

George had been a bit flush, whether from the snogging or the fact that Fred had walked in was up in the air, "ex? The two of you went to the yule ball and what two dates in 6th year?"

"She could have been the love of my life." Fred had aired dramatically.

George eyed his brother, "does it really bother you?"

And Fred had shrugged, "nah, mate. I'm happy for you two."

And he was, and it wasn't a lie. But also, it did bother him and it didn't.

It was in the same realm as the fact that George had his magic and Fred didn't. It bothered him, and it didn't.

But he couldn't rightly just say as much to George. If he did he'd get the same look of pity he'd gotten that day in the hospital when his wand had proved more useless than professor Lockhart had been.

So he ignored it, and reveled in the part of him that was happy for his brother and Angelina.

Still, all these sorts of feelings wear on a man. And between his brother's newfound honeymoon phase with Angelina, and the lack of true feeling of usefulness in the shop, and of course the pit of emptiness where his magic once sat Fred often found himself lost.

Literally eventually, one day in muggle London a year and some change after his near death experience. He'd left the flat because Angelina and George had been a little too chummy that morning and Fred wished a bit of peace from that.

So he'd wandered about, and then he'd gotten lost, and well he didn't know muggle London really as well as he should now that he was… well mostly muggle.

Can't exactly apparate home when lost anymore.

So he continued wandering, figuring eventually he'll decipher some bit of where he is and be able to find his way somewhere significant.

That's when he'd spotted it. Tucked into some brownstone buildings, a bright bit of yellow that begged to be looked at. He'd wandered towards it, nearly got hit by a bus coming to a stop in front of it, and then peered inside to see a similar familiar atmosphere to one he spends near everyday in.

There was a large plethora of sweets in one nook of the shop, but the rest seemed to be primarily occupied by shelves of novelty items. Fred had wandered in, a little silver bell ringing above the door as he did so, and started perusing the shelves.

Muggle joke items, he'd looked over them on the shelves. Lifting some boxes and examining them close. His dad collected a fair bit of muggle artifacts, and Fred has shifted through the old shed at the burrow to examine the collection before. He'd seen a few items like this in the past, little things meant to bring muggles laughter in well the muggle fashion. And he'd acknowledged it as much, fun, but lacking of magic.

Perhaps a bit like him now he supposes.

Perhaps that comparison was why he'd felt so compelled to look at them all more closely now.

He had a spare assortment of muggle money on him now, courtesy of his mum who had rightly worried that he'd get lost in muggle London one day and need to survive. He's certain she'd disapprove of this decision of spending, but he's also made more determined to do so because of that.

He buys only a two things that first visit in. A handful of sweets because he hadn't really eaten since breakfast and it was now nearing dinner, and a little metal thing called a hand buzzer that seems that on the packaging shows bits of lightening about a hand, certainly intriguing to Fred.

The shop has intrigued him well enough, and was made just a bit better by the girl behind the counter.

She sat on a thin bench stool, leaning over onto the counter and flipping through a book with a bunch of squares on it. Some of which, upon Fred's closer inspection upon stepping up the counter, had letters and words printed in them.

"Find everything?" She'd inquired, reaching and examining his choices.

"Yeah," he nods, glancing at the little metal object he'd picked out. "What does that do exactly though?"

She'd paused a bit in her examination, glanced up at him with a carefully raised brow. "Gives a bit of shock. Never seen one before?"

"No," He looks at it again, "how does it work?"

She'd shifted back then, sitting up on the stool and then glancing at the packaging, "May I?" she'd nodded at it, and he shrugged and nodded himself.

She opened the packaging, slipped the object so it sat in the palm of her hand and then held it out. "Nice to meet you," she smiled, and he had seen something so welcomingly devious in the smile there that he hadn't been able to help smiling in return.

And then when he'd taken her hand he'd felt what she'd been on about, a little zap like the sort one gets when they shuffle about a carpet in socks and touch someone. He'd jumped, and broken out into laughter. "Brilliant, thank you."

"No problem," she'd chuckled as she spoke, shaking her head a bit as she slipped the buzzer off her hand and held it out to him.

He counted out his money, still at that point getting the hang of the amounts. And at one point she'd had to hand him back a few random coins that he'd accidentally pushed her way. Finally he departed the shop, "have a nice day." She'd called out, and he'd glanced and nodded.

And, after he figured where exactly he was (which evidently wasn't all that far from Diagon Alley after all) when he'd gone back to the flat he'd spent the rest of the evening messing about with that little buzzer — after of course getting a good shock in on George upon his return — until he'd figured the little mechanics of how it ticked. And then, for the rest of the morning, spent some time figuring how to replicate it for wizards enjoyment too.

And all the while, he'd thought of that little yellow joke shop with the pretty girl smiling deviously behind the counter with the little name tag reading Deena Warren.