"So I was thinking about your old room" Fred said as he helped his twin pack up the last of his junk "Verity broke up with her girlfriend a few weeks ago and has been sleeping on Lee's sofa since while looking for a new place. How would you feel about me offering her the room?"
"That's a brilliant idea! We can offer her a reduced rent while she saves up since we own the place anyway." George exclaimed joyfully.
"Plus she can get rid of this hideous striped wallpaper you have in here" Fred teased and received a whack to the head in return.
"Go tell her while I floo this stuff over to Ange's place, we've got to get over to the Potter Manor in an hour for their Halloween party anyway." George instructed, grabbing a large box and disappearing from the room with an excited smile.
Verity was thrilled with the offer and grabbed her stuff from Lee's immediately, George had left the room furnished so the fact that she didn't have much of anything didn't matter. By the time the clock in the lounge struck nine, Fred and George were dressed in their Willy Wonka outfits and top hats waiting by the fire. Lee was dressed in a black onesie with a glow in the dark skeleton painted on the front and back and glow in dark face paint to complete the look. Angelina apparated over to join them in her 'sexy healer' costume moments before Hermione arrived dressed as Alice from Alice in Wonderland to escort them back to the manor and through the complex privacy wards.
"I have nothing to wear!" Verity's exasperated voice came from George's old bedroom and the two other girls rushed in to help.
Verity was sat on the bed surrounded by all of her clothes and make up, which was a very small collection of high end items.
"It's alright we'll sort something even if we have to transfigure a few things" Hermione soothed as she and Angelina rifled through the piles of fabric and shoes.
"I have an idea" Hermione's eyes lit up at the sight of a bright blue, long sleeved play suit "Angie, can you go grab those wings you wore last year as a fairy from your place? Verity choose some blue shoes to match this play suit and Lee" she stuck her head out the bedroom door "run downstairs and fetch a pot of blue face paint from the shop."
Verity threw on the playsuit and Hermione painted her legs blue below the short shorts before transfiguring the fairy wings Angelina had fetched to be pointer, longer and tinged slightly blue. Verity's short blonde bob hung perfectly to her chin and Angelina gave her blue eyeshadow, blue painted lips and long fake eyelashes.
"Presenting you with Verity, the cornish pixie!" Hermione announced proudly less than fifteen minutes later and the group of six apparated to the quidditch pitch on the edge of Potter manor before running through the gardens to join the Halloween celebrations.
…
"The Christmas crowds are mental" Verity exclaimed moments after she, Lee, Fred and George had closed the shop doors. All four had been needed out on the shop floor to help customers all day, it was the second Saturday in December and everyone seemed to want to give Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products as gifts.
"The war's over so happiness is key" George pointed out as he restocked the ground floor of the shop, a task he always took great pride in as it illustrated their success to have empty shelves at the end of a long day.
"Plus there's a mix of nostalgia and new products on offer now, those games are selling out fast as are the old canary creams." Lee added as he tallied up the till.
"I've got a couple of ideas for some new games and sweets for our Valentine's day line that we can work on in the January calm." Said Fred, leaning over the balcony from a few floors up where he had been resetting a display of random timer decoy detonators. "What time are we heading out to celebrate tonight Lee?"
It was Lee's birthday and the four best friends were heading out to a muggle nightclub to celebrate.
"Our tickets get us in between ten and ten thirty so you've got time to kiss your gorgeous girlfriend goodbye before we leave" Lee teased in response "or to have a nap if you're anything like baby Verity down here, ouch!"
Verity had thrown a fanged frisbee at Lee's head with perfect precision.
Hermione popped over after dinner at the manor with her housemates to help Verity get ready, the two had become good friends since halloween and often helped each other get ready for nights out.
Verity wore the blue playsuit again, Hermione explained that the muggle nightclub would be very hot so having bare legs was a good plan, with a pair of black stilettos and smokey eyes. Her perfectly straight bob just needed a quick brush and she was ready to go. The three boys were, as usual, waiting in the flat's lounge and pre-drinking firewhiskey. Fred, dressed in low slung ripped jeans and a tight Red Hot Chilli Peppers t-shirt, was already getting a little tipsy and, feeling frisky, had to be pulled away from a giggling Hermione who waved them off before heading back to the Manor for a night with her own best friends.
"To win the game of Wingardium, for the best team, Hermione. In what year was dragon breeding outlawed in Britain by the Wizengamot? " Ginny read from a card in the group's favourite lounge area in the manor.
Ron bounced excitedly on the opposite sofa, he knew this one 'please let Hermione get it wrong, please' he thought.
"1706?" Hermione guessed with an apologetic grimace at her team mate's groan of disappointment.
"No! It was 1709!" Shouted Ron, leaping up from his seat and moving his and Harry's hippogriff game piece to the final cube next to Hermione and Ginny's niffler piece.
Harry grabbed a card from the box nearest him, the creative cards, and picked up a lump of play dough.
"This is an all play card, I'll make what it says on my card and the first person to guess it correctly wins the game…" Harry read the card twice before setting it face down on the floor and starting to mould the play dough.
He rolled it into a sausage...
"A hot dog" guessed Ron
...pulled tendrils out at one end…
"Tree roots" Hermione shouted
...rounded the other end…
"The giant squid" called Ron
...drew eyes and a grimacing smile with his finger nails…
"A grindylow!" Ginny guessed
"Yeah" Harry sighed to raucous cheers from the two girls who danced around in celebration before moving their piece to the winner's box at the top causing indoors fireworks to explode noisily over their heads.
…
"Morning, I've just popped by to drop off a hangover cure then I'm heading to the burrow to help Molly prepare for the family dinner." Hermione called as she stepped out of the flat's fireplace late the next morning.
She stepped over to the coffee table, picked up the newspaper, ruffled Tweedle Dee's tawny feathers and set down two vials of her own hangover cure creation. Movement in the kitchen caught her eye and she looked over to see a tall woman with bleach blonde hair, enormous fake breasts and completely waxed pubic region. The woman stood stark naked in the middle of the kitchen holding a glass of water and seemingly unfazed by the fact Hermione was staring at her in shock.
Looking at the two doors she could see that Verity's was shut tight but Fred's was wide open and from where she was standing she could see him lying naked on top of the sheets and snoring. Hermione's gaze passed back and forth between her sleeping naked boyfriend and the voluptuous woman standing naked in his kitchen.
Tears stung her eyes and she turned, fleeing back through the floo to the manor as the heavy droplets escaped down her pasty cheeks.
