George looked around the dimly lit pub, moving aside from the door, leaning his head to one side then the other as he looked into each far corner. Wood wasn't there. He moved slowly towards the bar, nodding at those who nodded at him, wondering who he knew and who knew him. He ordered two pints, one hand splayed open on the bar top, foot kicked up on the lower rung of a barstool, waiting for the barkeep to pull the dark brew and make his change. He felt a slight twinge in his chest, a combination of anticipation and guilt. This marked the second time he had been in Fred's vicinity and wasn't seeing his twin. For a brief moment, in the afternoon, he had considered asking Oliver to let him back into the castle after the evening drew to an end…but nothing in that idea felt right. He decided he would owl McGonnagal and ask if he could come up to Hogwarts on Sunday. That plan placated him but now that he was in Hogsmeade he knew he was going to have to battle the temptation to walk up the road and solicit entrance to the school.

He had the two pints and a pocket of heavy change thanks to a small loan from Ron that morning. He moved through the tables and chairs and patrons and sat at the same table they'd occupied the week before.

The door opened and he turned to see Wood duck into the room. The man's gaze fastened on George at once and a broad smile pulled his mouth wide across his handsome face. George nodded and held one of the pint glasses up. Wood smiled even wider if that was possible and made his way through the room, clapping the odd man on the shoulder, ducking another man's head and ruffling a pensioner's thin hair before finally standing in front of George. Oliver took his proffered hand and pulled him into his embrace, his hand hard and wide and fast against George's back.

George felt as though his arms were filled with life and he reluctantly released him.

Wood turned and caught the attention of the barkeep, he held up two fingers and indicated the table and then shrugged out of a worn peacoat, tossing it on an empty chair and sat.

"George," he said.

"Oliver," George answered and the man's name was rich in his mouth, heavy on his tongue and he let it roll out between his lips like honey.

Oliver cocked an eyebrow at him and then the barkeep was there setting down two tumblers of firewhiskey and arranging a tab for the Hogwarts professor.

Wood picked up the tumbler, running the glass beneath his nose and inhaling the peaty smell of it as though he were bent over a spoon snorting drugs. George watched him and lifted his own glass to his face. The smell was intoxicating.

"You subscribe then to the Seventh Year rhyming - Beer before liquor never sicker." George laughed.

"Liquor before beer all clear." Wood clinked the bottom of his glass against George's and sipped deeply at the amber liquor. "Whiskey and Beer are a man's worst enemies... but the man that runs away from his enemies is a coward!" He upended the remainder of the whisky into his mouth, squinting across the table at George.

"Who said that?"

"I thought I just did." He laughed. "Nay. I heard it in a song years ago. And I don't subscribe to that amateur's rhyme neither." He sneered happily. "Booze is booze. I drink it so fast there'd be no point in drinking it in a specified order. You?'

"It does make me wonder what a whiskey chaser is for." George sipped at his drink, and then finished it. "Never mix the grape and the grain. That's a sentiment I try to observe."

Wood pulled a face. "I don't drink wine. At all. Not even champers. Never found a taste for it and don't think I fancy finding one now. Birds drink wine. Firewhiskey's my poison." He turned back to the bar and waved two fingers again. "How are you, my man?"

"I've been better and I've been worse. Good now that the week is over and I'm sitting here, I think."

"Right? Me, too."

Both men reached for their pint glasses and George watched Oliver watch him over the rim. Out of nowhere he suddenly felt giddy and realized it was coming from a thorough sense of anticipation. Of what, he could not have said.

Oliver set his glass down and wiped the foam from his dark goatee, flicking it to the floor.

"Cor," George said enviously. "I'm too clean shaven."

"Grow one."

George nodded, running quick fingers over his freshly shaved chin. "Fred and I," he hesitated, cleared his throat. "We drank an ageing potion once and had beards hanging down to the jewels."

Oliver laughed out loud. "Yeah?"

He narrowed his eyes, remembering the failed attempt at putting their names into the Tri-Wizard tournament cup. "I was too much this side of hipster to appreciate the cool factor, I suppose. Fred wanted to wear his but the antidote couldn't be doctored that way. After, he tried growing his own…but it was a sad sad chinstache. We ribbed him hard and that was the end of that."

Oliver laughed again. "Fred."

"Mmmm. Fred."

"To Fred then," Wood said.

George nodded. "Always to Fred."

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die." Oliver's voice was solemn.

George raised his beer glass and drained it, then threw back the second firewhiskey. He was drinking quickly and it was beginning to heat him from the outside in, his fingertips, his nose, and his toes inside his boots were all numbing hot. The long frozen core of him still cold but he relished the opposites of it. He felt overcome, with gratitude to Oliver, and to the fine edge he recognized he was walking along. He could continue to drink at Oliver's pace and sink deep below the surface of sobriety; that felt comfortable and safe, familiar and known. It called to him in a seductive voice promising some mystery – how he would get home, how much he might misstep into Wood's space, what flavour of blacked-out memories with silver edges he would wake with tomorrow. He decided to talk instead of drink. "Last night, Merlin's beard. Last night."

Oliver seemed to sense the sea change in him and waited.

"Ron and Ginny talked me into attending one of those daft meetings."

"Wot, like, for drunks?"

George barked out a surprised laugh. "No. No. It was one of those survivors meetings. You know, like group," he hesitated with the word, "therapy. A headshrinker runs the show and you're supposed to rip yourself open in front of all these sad sacks who, it turns out, are just like you."

Wood nodded. "I remember those. They still got them?"

George looked down at his hands, palms wet now with sweat and he rubbed them down the long length of his thighs, feeling the corduroy fabric. "Lost in Service." He looked back up into Oliver's face, the dark eyes serious, fast and steady on his own blue gaze. "I didn't lose Fred. He was taken from me. Torn right out of my life. Lose? What on this fucken' earth is that supposed to mean? Was I careless with him? Left him somewhere and returned later to find him gone? Misplaced him? Let go of his hand in a crowd? I can't stand that word in that context. Really."

"I don't blame you, mate."

"Damn."

"S'okay, George."

"No. It's not. It's really not. Nearly twenty years and I'm still furious about it." He looked down at the empty pint and the two drained tumblers beside it. "This helps…." He trailed off from the admission. He caught the telltale sign of his mind beginning to spin slightly and knew that the three drinks in quick succession had gone above and beyond.

"For a while. Aye."

Oliver was standing and George settled into his chair, waiting for the arrival of the next round and the ubiquitous chaser. Instead, he felt Oliver's hand burrow beneath his arm, pulling him to his feet. "Where's your coat then, George?"

"My what?"

"Let's go for a walk, eh? Get outta here for a bit and we'll come back round to it, right?"

And then Oliver was helping him shrug into his jacket, slinging his own across his broad shoulders, the press of his arm hard and fast, guiding him through the pub. George saw him nod to the barkeep and then the two of them were outside, standing clear and free in the night air and he could breathe and his mind steadied and beside him he felt the warm breathing presence of this other man outlined solidly, corporeal, somatic and immediate. He knew, without looking, the shape and form of Oliver's body next to his elbow. As they moved into the street, the aching feel of walking beside another man mirroring the size and shape of his own size and shape, the movements shared, the experience shared, stepping forward together, filled him and with a small wonder George realized it was pleasure not pain suffusing his senses.