Chapter Four; Stay Here Tonight.
Alicia looked into the mirror; she still had mascara running under her eyes. She turned on the water, took the soap and washed her face. She had just recently taken a shower. When she looked into the mirror she looked on her pants she had washed George's blood out of. She had put the cloth, which was full of his blood, on her pants.
It was about half an hour before she was going back to the Burrow. She felt her stomach growl for something eatable. She took one last look at her face before she swept herself into a robe instead of the towel and walked out into the kitchen. She didn't have anything eatable in her kitchen that she felt like eating, no, it all looked awful to her.
She mostly had food that you needed to cook, and she really didn't feel like cooking, so she knew exactly were she could go.
"Hi Bruno." She said to the man behind the counter when she walked into the Diner.
"Miss Alicia." He said and looked at her. "You know that I'm closing at this time."
"I know, but can you please hold it up just a little bit longer for me." She said and gave him an apologetic smile, and sat down by the counter.
"Well then." He said and walked over to the door and turned the open sign. "Just for you."
"Thanks, I'm starved." She responded and Bruno walked into the kitchen.
"I'll make you something special. I have a new recipe I have come up with." He shouted to her from the kitchen.
"Thanks." She called back and looked around for the latest Muggle news paper. "Bruno's diner" was this place called, this was the Diner were she worked. Bruno was a man in his late forties with a really nice personality. Even though she had only been working there for just six months, the two of them had established a friendship. This Diner was Bruno's everything; he was usually joking and calling it his baby.
Alicia was one out of three waitresses that worked here, and not to forget the Peter that worked in the kitchen with Bruno. Alicia liked it here; it was like she became a totally different person when she entered walked in through that door. She didn't have to be the Witch Alicia, she could be another person.
"Isn't it awful?" Bruno said when he came out with a plate of food for Alicia.
"What is?" Alicia asked, looking up from the article in the paper she had been reading.
"Everyday in the paper there is a headline about mysterious murders going on out in the country." He continued and put down the plate in front of Alicia. "There is no sign of any damage to the body, it's like they fall drop dead, whole families at once. My nephew that works with the police told me that."
"I can't say I don't agree." She obviously knew who that was behind these attacks and how they had died, but she didn't tell Bruno, he would just ask more question.
"You are probably too young to remember, but there was a time things was just as bad as now before." Bruno started.
"Over 16 years ago, proximally." She interrupted, thinking about Harry Potter.
"Yes, I can still remember that day when it all stopped then… November first, 1981." Bruno said remembering. "Weirdly dressed people, loads of packs of owls flying by."
"This is delicious Bruno." Alicia interrupted him again; she didn't want to go in on the subject that Bruno tried to bring up.
"You really think that?" He looked at her curiously.
"Yes, what you put in it?" she said and pushed away the empty plate.
"Oh well…" He said. "It's something American." He nodded looking at her with a smirk.
When Alicia apparated to the Burrow the smile on her face had faded, so had the mood also, she walked into the yard of the burrow and over to the back door and hoped that they all weren't sleep. She knocked on the door a few times before she walked in and saw Tonks and Fred sitting alone by the table, drinking tea and talking, but when they saw Alicia both of them raised their wands at her.
"Check me." Alicia said and held up her hands.
"When was the last time that you and George even spoke before tonight?" Fred asked.
"It was after Christmas in seventh year, I told him to grow up after he had punched Daniel." Alicia answered and both he and Tonks lowered their wands.
"So… you're back now." Tonks said, but like she usually did, she didn't smile.
"Did everything go okey? Did the others come back?" Alicia asked a little bit worried.
"Well…" Fred started but he looked like he wasn't so sure how he should continue.
"Bill and Fleur came back safely, but…" Tonks said.
"But what? What happened to 'Dung and Mad-Eye?"
"'Dung dissaparated and Mad-Eye eye was hit with a killing curse." Fred continued.
If Alicia hadn't cried earlier that evening for George, she definitely would have started now. Her dad had been working together with Mad-Eye since the two of them were successful field Aurors. But her dad wasn't as old as Mad-Eye, or as mad or just as scarred, of course her dad head scars but not as visible and many as Mad-Eye. Her dad hadn't been working so much in the field since he met Alicia's mum and got his two daughters.
"Three down one to go." Tonks said and pulled out a chair so that Alicia could sit down.
"What do you mean; three down one to go?" Fred asked.
"There are four people that are the biggest threat to You-Know-Who." Tonks started. "Dumbledore, Mad-Eye, Harry and Alicia's dad, John Spinnet. I don't think that anyone have brought in more information about You-Know-Who than John and Mad-Eye, At least the last time that You-Know-Who had the power. I could practically say that John and Mad-Eye was a like, except one thing."
"What is that, He didn't go mad?" Fred joked. But Tonks shook her head and tilted it toward Alicia.
"He met a woman when he was working on an assignment in America." Tonks said with a smile.
"My mum." Alicia started down onto the table. Not noticing that Ginny and Mrs. Weasley came into the kitchen.
"I remember that she was beautiful, and to add to the irony, a Muggle." Tonks continued.
"Your Mum was a Muggle?" Fred asked chocked, he didn't know that about her.
"Yes." Alicia answered simple.
"Nine months later Cathy came, then Alicia three years later and then…" Tonks interrupted herself; she glanced toward Alicia, not sure if she should continue.
"A couple of months after I was born my Mum were killed." Alicia said, not looking up, and not wanting to go in any deeper into the subject.
"That's awful." Ginny commented out loud.
Alicia looked up at her. "Oh hey there, I didn't know that you were here."
"I just arrived." Ginny responded. "But just ignore my comment. Just continue."
"John Spinnet was very well respected and known for his theories." Mrs. Weasley said, now joining the conversation. "You want some tea dear?" She turned toward Alicia.
"No thank you." Alicia responded.
"Anyway, John Spinnet was, except for one of the greatest battle wizard in our time, a man that could take any kind of facts and put up a theory." Mrs. Weasley continued. "And 9,9 out of 10, his theory was right, no matter how twisted it was."
"Until his theory about Sirius Black." Tonks said. "I can say that he was the only one that actually believed that Sirius Black was innocent. But because of the evidence, nobody believed him."
"I remember Arthur coming home and telling me that John Spinnet had lost his mind, coming up with a theory about that poor little Pettigrew was the one that told You-Know-Who about James and Lily's location." Mrs. Weasley told them.
"And he was right." Harry's voice came from the door opening. He, Ron and Hermione had come into the kitchen; they walked over to the table and joined the conversation.
"Well, great." Alicia said, and lost her temper a little, she didn't like to talk about her dad; she didn't want to think of that he might be dead. "Everybody join in on the conversation; just let me first do what I actually came here to do." She reached over for her bag. "Where's George?"
"He's sleeping." Mrs. Weasley said. "Why do you wonder?"
"I just have this tea with me for him. It's something that Dad gave me; he said that it was specially made for people that have been through a dramatic experience." She pulled up the box with tea-bags from her bag and put it up on the table. "I think that loss of an ear counts as one."
"Thank you dear, I'll make him some tomorrow when he wakes up." Mrs. Weasley said and took the box from Alicia and when she put it down the door opened and Lupin and Bill walked in. The two of them also sat down by the kitchen table after they had been checked.
"Did you find the body?" Tonks asked the two of them the question everybody wanted an answer on.
"No, unfortunately we didn't." Bill said sadly. "I'm tired, I'm gonna go upstairs." He stood up from his seat and walked away.
"Why don't we all call it an early night?" Mrs. Weasley said and looked at a real clock. "It's almost ten o'clock; it's been a long day."
And with that Ginny, Hermione, Harry and Ron left the kitchen to get to bed.
"We'd better get back too." Tonks said. "It's late."
"I have to go to the library tomorrow." Alicia said and also stood up. "I have to finish my medical theoretical report." She continued, yawning between the words.
"Why don't you stay here tonight Alicia?" Mrs. Weasley said.
"What?" Alicia responded chocked, she thought that Mrs. Weasley wanted as much distance as possible between her and George.
"I really don't think that anyone of us should be alone tonight, you can sleep on the second sofa in the sitting room. So that you can remind everybody to stay quiet because of George."
"Mum." Fred said with a small grin on his face. "Don't you remember what happened the last time that George and Alicia were alone together in the same room?" He joked looking up at his mum.
"That was many years ago." Mrs. Weasley responded to her son calmly. "I'm gonna go make the sofa." She left the kitchen.
"She didn't even wait for my respond." Alicia said to Fred.
"Well, that's mum; she's a mother hen who thinks that everybody young is her chicken. No matter how angry she is at someone, she can never let them go around hungry." He gave Alicia a smirk. "I can tell that from personal experience."
She smiled. "George said once that the wrath of your mum makes McGonagall's look like a teddybears."
"He was truly right, I think that mum is the only one that I know that can overvoice the portrait of Mrs. Black."
"But your mum isn't cursing just as much, is she?"
"No, mum doesn't curse at all." Fred said and stood up. "I'd better get to bed. Since Mum probably won't let George go to work tomorrow, I have to. Good night Alicia." He said and walked over toward the stairs and disappeared upstairs.
Alicia couldn't sleep that night; she just simply lay there at the sofa looking over a George that slept peacefully. She loved to stare at his face, notice how different it was from Fred's, how Georges nose was just a slight longer that Fred's. But they were still alike. Like looking in the mirror.
She couldn't think of Fred as George or George as Fred. She couldn't explain it, she just knew. Maybe it was just the fact that George had this look in his eyes when he looked at her. Or maybe it was the fact that George somehow looked kinder than Fred, which she couldn't explain, George just looked kinder in the face.
She liked his freckles as well, she didn't have freckles, her unnaturally blond hair prevented her from that.
"You don't have to stare at me; I know that I'm pretty." Alicia suddenly heard George's voice say.
"Holy shit." She cursed.
"No shit, just holey." George leaned his head toward her, looking at her curiously.
"I didn't know that you were awake. You startled me." She sat up in the sofa.
"Sorry about that." George also sat up in the sofa. "I'm hungry, you hungry?"
"What?" She was a little chocked that he could think of food. "No, I'm not."
"Okay." He walked out to the kitchen and then came back a few minutes later with a sandwich. But he didn't walk back to his own sofa; instead he walked over to Alicia and sat down next to her.
"That looks disgusting." Alicia commented when she saw the sandwich. "What do you have on it?"
"My sandwich?" George stopped eating and looked at it. "Well, It contains a little of the lunch mum made today, and the dinner we had yesterday."
"Okay." She raised her eyebrows and looked away. "It you think that it tastes good, then its fine with me."
"It does." George claimed. "Here taste it." He steered to sandwich toward her mouth, but Alicia tried to make him stop but George just smiled. "Fine." He said and took away the sandwich. "Then don't taste it, sturdy." He finished and pouted.
"George, don't pout." She said, but he showed her that he could be as sturdy. "You act like you are nine, and not nineteen." She knew that she couldn't resist him when he pouted.
"I'm not listening to you." George said and continued to eat his sandwich. "Now you will never get the chance." He said to her when he was finished.
"To be fair, I never wanted the chance." She smiled and looked at him. If you saw him from this side of the face, you couldn't even guess that he had just lost an ear earlier today. "This day has been pretty crazy, hasn't it?"
He turned his head and looked at her. "Yeah, I think that my ear agree." He smiled.
She didn't say anything, she just smiled half. "I think that everybody got a rush from that. I mean, when you were lying there, bleeding an' all. Your mum just stepped aside and let me do my thing, it's like she trusted me, and like really thought that I could help you."
"I'm glad that you did, Mum loves you for that."
"Sure." She said sarcastic.
"What she does!" George claimed. "You should hear that way that she was talking about you when she made the sofa for me earlier. Kept talking about how talented you are, and how I would have been in a much worse state if it wasn't for you and blah, blah, blah…"
"Shouldn't you get back to your bed? It's four in the morning?" she said right back at him.
"Don't worry; dad doesn't get up until five." He paused and looked over the silent room. "If neither of us can sleep, what are we going to do?"
"Well, maybe you should…" She started, but got cut of by his lips on hers. It was a short kiss, but George's cheeks still turned red afterwards.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have done that." He said and Alicia could see that he really meant it.
"Maybe you should have…" She said and returned the kiss. This time it wasn't just a short one, it was a long and passionate one. Alicia moved her hand up over his chest, up to his neck, she rested her hand shortly at the back of the scull before moving it up into his hair and…
"Ah…" George moaned and broke off the kiss.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She said.
"Don't be sorry, I'm the one with a fleshy wound instead of an ear." George responded. "I'd better get back to my…" He indicated toward the sofa.
"You do that." She whispered to herself.
