"Mum, you need to stop, this is embarrassing."

Harry re-messed his hair after his mother smoothed it down in an attempt to tame it.

"It's not every day that a dead mother gets to fix her suddenly nineteen year old son up for a date with his girlfriend," Lily tutted as her son's unruly black locks popped back up.

"That sentence just shows me how absolutely bat-shit crazy my life is," Harry chuckled a bit ruefully.

"Watch your language young man," Lily glared at Harry playfully. "Now, you must tell me, where are you and Ginny headed to?"

"Well, I was thinking of taking her to the Harpies pitch to fly around a bit and then-"

"Woah, woah, woah," Lily put her hand up and stopped Harry mid sentence. "You're taking your girlfriend to where she works, on a date?"

"Well, um I was," Harry said unsurely. "What's wrong with that?"

Lily tutted. "Harry, the poor girl is there everyday. I mean, I understand that she loves flying, but isn't going to work on a date a bit much?"

"I-I guess," Harry agreed. "What should I do? We're supposed to leave in a couple of hours."

"Well," Lily began, "I always use to love when your father would take me for a romantic walk through this beautiful little park in muggle London, and then we would have a candle-lit picnic under the stars."

"Walk and a picnic," Harry nodded, "I can do that. I can definitely do that."

•••

"Stop cheating, Padfoot!" James exclaimed as his cards exploded in his face, yet again.

"I'm not cheating!" Sirius retorted. "How the hell do you cheat at Exploding Snap?"

"You can cheat at anything Sirius," James raised an eyebrow from behind his soot stained glasses. "It's you, we're talking about here. Tell him, Moony, he's a cheating bastard."

Both James and Sirius looked to the right where they expected their friend to be sitting, playfully rolling his eyes and declaring either James paranoid or Sirius, indeed, a cheater.

Sirius sighed sadly, "I'm starting to think he'll never come back, Prongs."

James threw his cards onto the coffee table and leaned into the back of the couch. "You can't think that way, Padfoot. You have to stay positive."

"It's hard to stay positive when one of your best friends are dead," Sirius chuckled bitterly. "Trust me, I'd know."

"He'll come back," James said confidently. "Just wait, you'll see."

•••

"Fred, get down from there! You could get hurt," George yelled at his twin as he watched him climb high up a ladder to reach the top shelf of trick wands.

"Georgie," Fred sighed as he placed a pack of wands on the display, "I'm fine, I'm not going to fall down and die all over again."

George sighed in relief as Fred finally made his way down the ladder. "I know, but I lost you, Freddie. I thought that I was going to have to live the rest of my life without my best friend around to get into trouble with."

Fred walked over to George and pulled him into a reassuring hug, something he had been doing a lot lately.

"Just like I said that first day I was back," said Fred as he patted his twin's back. "I'm not going anywhere, anytime soon if I can help it."

"Alright," George nodded hesitantly as he pulled away from his brother. "But can you do just one thing for me?"

"Anything," agreed Fred, "as long as it's not some ridiculously overprotective demand."

"Just, please leave the climbing up tall ladders for Sophie," George asked hopefully of his brother.

"Who's Sophie?" Asked Fred in confusion.

"I hired her after you, ya know," George skirted around the word 'died'. "Ron was trying to help out, but with Auror training it was hard. She's a really funny girl, and she's a good worker, too. She should be coming in soon, if you wanna meet her?"

"Yeah," Fred nodded. "Totally. If you deemed this girl devious, funny, and cool enough to work in our shop then I wanna meet her."

"Cool, she should be here in like fifteen minutes."

Sure enough, ten minutes later, a pretty girl with dark hair, tan skin, and big brown eyes walked through the door wearing the magenta robes that signified you were an employee at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

"George!" She called out in an American accent. "My favorite boss!"

"Sophie!" George called back, a smile growing on his face. "My favorite employee!"

When Fred stepped forward Sophie looked at him in awe.

"Either I'm seeing a very handsome double image here," she smiled playfully, "or you're the infamous Fred Weasley that I've heard so much about."

"All good things I hope," chuckled Fred. When she smiled and laughed back Fred continued, "what's that accent, American?"

"Yeah," nodded Sophie, "I'm from Boston, Massachusetts."

"Is bad that I have no idea where that is?" Chuckled Fred nervously.

"Nah," Sophie smiled brightly. "When I first got to England I had no clue where anything was either. To be honest, it's been almost a year and I still have no clue."

"Maybe I could show you around some time?" Fred suggested.

Sophie smile grew so much that it almost felt like her face could split in half. "I'd really like that, Fred."

Fred's smile grew as well, and the famous Weasley blush creeped up his neck and colored his ears pink.

George looked on at his brother and Sophie who were staring nervously and embarrassedly at each other.

"Well, you two," George smirked, "back to work, chop chop. Get back to the daily grind and all that muggle mumbo jumbo."