Sunday, 12 October 1997

Diagon Alley, London

She'd fallen asleep there, on the sheltered stoop with her sick six-year-old wrapped up in every spare piece of clothing they owned. And the way Chessie realized this was the way she was woken up, falling backward through a doorway that had until recently had a door in it.

And if that hadn't waken her up enough on its own, the body soaring over her head and into the muddy road as she fell inside the building made sure her eyes were wide open. And bodies soaring over her that cried "Bloody hell!" on their way down were an eye opener indeed.

Before her head even hit the ground Chessie was already crying out "I'm sorry! So, so sorry, but it was raining and-." She paused when she saw the man who had tripped over her roll over and sit on his butt in the muddy street while he digested his situation. She saw a bit of red hair the exact shade of a violent explosion underneath the dull brown of the mud, and confused brown eyes sizing her and her sleeping companion up. That suit looked expensive.

"Sorry," she whispered weakly. The 'WWW' she'd noticed subconsciously on the door must be the initials for that Weasley joke shop she'd read a miniscule article about in the Daily Prophet a year or two ago. Chessie remembered that she'd wandered why in Merlin's name someone would open a joke shop in the middle of a dark war, but it was something she never intended to visit.

"Are you alright?" the redhead- one of the infamous Weasley twins- asked in an amused voice. Was this man, whom she'd inadvertently tripped and made fall into a giant oozy puddle, concerned for her? Those clothes weren't of mud-diving quality at all.

"I'm…" Chessie began slowly.

"Cold," Rose murmured from within the pile of clothes, shivering violently.

"Well, hello there, Cold." The dirty redhead began, lifting himself from the mud. "I'm George."

Rose's temperature soared over one hundred degrees that night as she lay bundled up in all the blankets the Weasley twins could find. For the first time in weeks Rose was clean. Her normally tanned face was pale once again now that the dirt was removed from it, and her wavy hair was gold once again and spilled out over the pillow. There was an unnatural flush in her cheeks, and when she was conscious, her eyes were too bright a blue. She was so weak from being ill so long that she couldn't help but just lay on the bed. The fever had reached a point where she was delirious.

She cried for her mother a lot.

Chessie didn't react, she just was. She was there with soup, her golden eyes worried. She was there with healing potions, dark-skinned hands as steady as possible as she spread ointments and cast healing spells. And she was in the shower a lot, taking a few minutes every so often to glory in the feeling of cleanliness she hadn't realized how badly she'd missed. There was one point where she actually fell asleep standing up in the shower, and only woke up to George knocking on the bathroom door to check on her.

Fred, after learning of the surprise squatters and having a good laugh at the mental image of George in the puddle, had gone off that morning to locate Lupin via Hogwarts, but his lack of return wasn't promising. George ran back and forth between the shop on the ground floor and the flat above it to check on them, doing a surprising amount of nurturing and domestic activities for a guy.

"My mum rubs off," he explained with a shrug. "She can never find out about that, I'd never hear the end of it."

They sat together at the small kitchen table. Chessie, bundled up in the most modest and oldest bathrobe she could locate, and George, in a yellow sweater with a large 'G' on it, sipped some kind of herbal tea that actually managed to soothe Chessie's shattered nerves.

"My mum sends about four liters of this stuff over every week. I'm afraid it's all we have right now. Hadn't counted on company." George smiled apologetically. Chessie grinned politely and resumed sipping her tea.

Silence grew until the tick of the small wall clock was all that kept it from being lethally crushing.

Chessie broke the silence first. "You don't happen to have family in Otter St. Catchpole, do you?"

George blinked. "I do actually, why? How'd you know that?"

"I used to live there."

"I never saw you." She could tell George was running faces and names through his head. "What was your name again?"

"Chessie Wharton. But don't worry, I only lived there for about five years."

"Oh. Well, I don't feel too bad in that case. Why'd you leave?" He took a small sip of tea, his eyes never leaving hers. Why is he being so nice, anyway?

"I had a…medical condition arise. As did Rose."

"A medical problem that requires you to desperately seek out known werewolves while sleeping on people's stoops on rainy days."

"…Yes," Chessie hesitated. She knew she had said too much already, and nervously tucked a curl behind her ear.

"You know, Lupin mentioned some werewolves in the area not too long ago…" George commented offhand, as though he already knew. But how would he?

She put her mug down on the counter with unnecessary force. "It's Rose and me who are the werewolves, okay? I was walking home from work one night, happy as I could be given my boring life, and the next thing I know I'm in St. Mungo's with nurses dropping things whenever I cough. I can't go home because people will know why I was gone, plus the government stole my house. Rose can't go home because she has nowhere to go. I have almost no money and now Rose is sick and I'm using a complete stranger's shower as a security blanket."

"For which I would like to thank you, by the way. Clean people are much easier on the nose."

Chessie's frustration was gone at that as a smile rose unbidden to her face. It felt good to smile. She finally relaxed enough to lean back in the old wooden chair, and rubbed her temples.

"Obviously I mostly get reactions that are the opposite of yours," she said in a very tired tone. George nodded sympathetically and refilled her tea.

The front door swung open abruptly, letting more spring humidity in. A voice sounded loudly.

"Oy," Fred called, "We've got company! Well, even more company!"

George looked away from Chessie and headed into the hall, where a matronly voice called out:

"George, it's Mum! Fred told me someone was sick."

Chessie went and leaned against the kitchen doorway and watched as who could only be their mum crushed the twin bachelors in a death hug as soon as she was up the stairs into the twin's home from the store below. The small woman radiated motherly affection and the death grip of her hug crushing two of her sons showed that she was practiced in displaying it. Chessie's mum had never hugged her. It was nice to watch, Chessie realized.

"Mum…Mum!" One of the twins (the one that smelled like summer and sunrise- George) gasped. Mrs. Weasley opened her eyes and saw Chessie in all her frazzled, crushed, nonexistent glory. The middle-aged woman looked kind and sugary, but with the sharp eyes of a good mother. She released her sons and rushed forward.

"You must be the lady Fred told me about. He was right, you are gorgeous-!"

Behind her, Fred was mouthing something with a stricken expression on his face.

"I said nothing of the sort!"

But Mrs. Weasley had already moved on. "You look exhausted, dear. Would you like some of my herbal tea? It'll do you wonders."

Chessie wasn't sure, even though she'd just finished a cup and was clearly still holding it. She'd never had a person offer her anything in such a loving and concerned tone before. She'd run away at fourteen because of her mother.

George must have known she wasn't sure about his mum because he changed the subject quickly, much to Chessie's relief. "Rose is the sick one, she's in the spare room- Fred, can you…?"

Fred took one look at Chessie's politely-suppressed panic, and George, and smirked to himself as he led the superwoman into the guest room, where Rose was lying asleep. As soon as they'd left, Chessie turned to George with an arched eyebrow.

"You called your mother?"

George blushed slightly. "Fred did, not me."

Fred popped back into the hall, looking disappointed he hadn't interrupted anything. "So I hate to be the one to point this out, but Mum's going to be using the guest room with the little blonde and I don't feel like sharing my bed with either of you. George snores like a hippogriff."

"You can use my bed, I'll sleep on the sofa." George offered chivalrously. Chessie shook her head in slight horror.

"No, not in your own house! I'm a guest, I'll stay in here. On the sofa."

"But-." Protested George.

"No, it's not like-." Said Chessie.

"-You've slept in a bed lately-."

"Good night, you two. Don't argue too loud, I'm going to try to sleep." Fred sauntered off slowly with a devious look in his eyes.

"I'll sleep-." Chessie tried.

"GET IN MY BED!" George shouted, realizing too late how quiet the house had gotten. Molly Weasley dropped something in the guest room.

"George!" She cried in a scandalous tone and Chessie burst out laughing.