As it turns out, fluffy snowflakes significantly reduced business. While I had been at school in past Decembers, I always imagined Diagon Alley to be busy all year long especially during the build-up to Christmas. However, Angie and I found ourselves sitting in a plainly empty shop, Angie fiddling with a galleon as I tried brewing some Amortentia in the new solid gold cauldron George bought me for my birthday two months earlier. I had no use for the love potion, but Angie and I were just dying to know what we would smell.
We had tasked Fred and George with keeping an eye on the dinner I'd started in the back room, and he seemed to think that meant not letting the food out of his sight. This was fine by me, really. It was always nice to have them out of our hair for a bit. However, these moments were fleeting, as Fred proved by popping back into the shop and startling me. Thankfully, I managed not to ruin my delicate potion, a habit of mine that I truly could not stand.
"What's that?" Fred asked as Angie turned the coin over in her hand. "Is that a galleon? Have you been stealing from me?"
"You're hilarious," Angie mumbled. "It's my DA coin."
Fred's eyes widened, and he slid into the seat next to her. "You kept that?" he breathed, resting a hand on one of hers to still her flipping. He leaned his face in right next to hers, red hair mixing with black braids so it was hard to tell where she ended and he began.
"Didn't you keep yours?"
"Yeah!" he exclaimed as if it was obvious, followed closely by, "But I lost it."
Angie rolled her eyes. "I just feel like I need to keep it handy, like something's going to happen."
"Don't you start with the feelings. Mel gives me enough of that," Fred grumbled, still staring at the coin. Angie lowered it, so Fred turned his gaze to her face, which would have been uncomfortably close to him months ago. Not anymore. Neither of them flinched at the feel of the other's breath on their faces. They would not go as far as to label themselves a couple or throw the dreaded "boyfriend/girlfriend" terms around, but their relationship had changed a lot in the past several months.
"I'm right here, y'know," I protested gamely. Fred shot me a look. "Don't mock me, or you don't get dinner."
"You want her dinner," Angie assured him, pecking a kiss right between his eyes. "Something about her potion-y wonder translates excellently to the culinary arts."
"See, but that somewhat frightens me," Fred winced. "She could drug me like she's done George, and I wouldn't even taste it around…what is that, beef stew?"
"It is," Angie confirmed when I did not answer, only stared wide-eyed at Fred. Oh Rowena, he knew. He knew.
Bullocks. How could he know?
"What do you mean I drugged George?" I wrinkled my nose, turning back to the Amortentia to hide the blush rising in my cheeks.
"Well, considering the fact that he and I share a fair amount of genes, I can find no other way to explain his seemingly permanent insanity than that you clearly drugged him into love-induced madness."
"WHAT?!" Angie and I both exclaimed. I whirled on him, pestle in hand, and Angie slapped his shoulder. "What the hell are you talking about?" she demanded.
"Calm yourselves!" Fred insisted, holding his hands up in defense. "I'm just saying that he didn't mutter to himself half as much before you two started up, and he certainly never scolded me for having a bit of fun like he did this morning."
"Oh," Angie rolled her eyes. "You're not still on about that."
"Of course I'm still on about that!" Fred insisted childishly. He crossed his arms over his chest and stuck his bottom lip out in a pout. At my confusion, he explained, "He told me I wasn't allowed to send Ron this thing I've been working on. It's just a rock, see, but when the moonlight hits it, it turns into a tarantula. He would go mad."
"Oh, honestly," I rolled my eyes. "It's a wonder that boy doesn't have a complex."
"Think how hilarious that would be! Ron wakes up to a big, hairy spider on his face! Priceless!" Fred insisted.
"Aren't tarantulas poisonous?" Angie, the voice of sanity, asked.
"Only a little," Fred rolled his eyes. "He'd live. I could probably even work that bit out so it wouldn't bite or something. See, perfectly safe!"
"Absolutely not," I chuckled. "That's torture to the poor boy."
"See, that's what George said. You've clearly brainwashed him with some concoction I've never even heard of." Fred stuck his tongue out at the sour taste I apparently now created in his mouth.
"Do you think you could at least pretend to like me for today? We do have guests coming for dinner," I reminded him. Fred rolled his eyes dramatically, but it was hard to tell if that was at the idea of pretending not to hate me (which hopefully involved just stopping the pretend hatred of me) or at the thought of half of his family coming over for dinner.
Even though we tried and tried and tried to put it off, we could no longer keep the Weasleys from invading our fortress of solitude. One could practically feel waves of agitation rolling off of Molly Weasley every time we had to go to Grimmauld or the Burrow because our lives had diverged so greatly from hers. With Bill so insistent on marrying Fleur despite her none-too-carefully hidden displeasure, she took great pleasure in George and me visiting. It seemed that she rather liked me in comparison to my French counterpart. Extremely unfair to Fleur, really. I was quite taking a shine to the girl personally. Sure, she was prettier than a diamond in a coal mine which did, admittedly, make me want to punch her, but the girl could hardly help the Veela blood in her. And she was so hilarious; that blunt French upbringing was endearing. Well, at least I found it endearing. Ginny just called her Phlegm.
Then again, Bill and Fleur were coming, too, so I guess Molly wasn't really getting away from them. She just had a better excuse to ignore their engagement when George and I were around. Because, really, what better distraction was there than harping on the fact that George and I were not planning a wedding?
Ugh.
The only consolation I had was that, for once, Arthur Weasley would not interrogate me about muggle ways of life. After all, that happened to be Angelina's area of expertise, and she actually had a certain fondness for discussing it with him. I think part of her missed the simplicity of life in her parents' house. Being a muggle, her father did not like the use of magic in the house unless it was especially necessary. Yes, by all means put out the kitchen fire with a spell, but do the dishes by hand. Vacuum the carpet. Let your flu pass in its own time. I knew I missed some of that, especially the soothing rhythm of cleaning things by hand, so I could only imagine how she must feel. Talking about cars and telephones and vacuum cleaners with Mr. Weasley may be just what the doctor ordered, so to speak.
The ginger crowd bustled through our fireplace all too soon, immediately ruining the calm we were so used to living in. Mrs. Weasley grabbed Angie and me in bone-crushing hugs that ended abruptly because she had three very important things to do. First, she had to not-so-subtly let George know that having a female presence around did the place a load of good and he should consider making the arrangement more "permanent", which turned my boyfriend's face bright red with a mixture of embarrassment and frustration at his marriage-focused mother. Then, she had to ask how, with Angie also under our roof, we had any extra room for other people. When Fred asked what "other people" we would need additional bedrooms for, she shrugged her shoulders and made a vague reference to just how young she had been when she had Bill. Children. Lovely. So, she didn't even care what came first at this point, a wedding or a grandchild. She just wanted some kind of furthering to my relationship with George. No pressure. But, before George and I could feel completely mortified, only mostly so, she had to stick her nose in the food.
Mr. Weasley then waylaid Angie to ask about sutures and stitches (his self-prescribed medical treatment after being attacked in the Department of Mysteries last year was still a bit of a heated topic in the family). Bill, Ron, and Fred started talking business – how to set up displays to get people buying more than they really needed, the use of colors to make products more attractive, how much money our WonderWitch line was actually making, how the Shield Hats were coming along, etc. George took to entertaining Ginny with a Headless Hat, making his head vanish and reappear and then doing the same to her in front of the mirror. She found this ridiculous amusing, and her giggles mixed with the boys chatter and Angie's patient corrections and the clattering pots indicating Mrs. Weasley meddling with my food.
But Fleur Delacour was quiet. Far too quiet, especially considering she was French. And it annoyed me. She hovered awkwardly close to me as I debated whether or not to shoo Molly out of my kitchen, but she did not say one word. She just shuffled her feet with downcast eyes, occasionally felt Bill's gaze on her and faked a smile for him but let it fall as soon as he turned back to the blokes, and fiddled with her engagement ring. I could just feel "pretty" radiating off of her, and it irritated me, and she did not speak, and that irritated me more, and she looked so very very sad, and that irritated me to the very brink because pretty girls should never ever look sad. So, unable to take out my frustration on a gorgeous woman clearly on the verge of tears, I touched her wrist, making her jump, and cocked my head towards the kitchen. Girl time.
I poked my head through the doorway, motioning for her to stay back. "Mrs. Weasley?"
"Mel! Oh, good! I'm putting some salt in your stew; you didn't put any-"
"Mr. Weasley's trying to coax Angie into agreeing that he would've healed just fine with stitches, and I'm not sure she really knows what he's getting at…"Which may have been a slight exaggeration of the truth, but I knew how to get this woman out of my kitchen. If she could get George and I to walk into her little marriage/baby traps, I could get her away from my food!
"Oh, well, is he really?" Mrs. Weasley set her jaw firmly and froze with her hand halfway to the salt that had no business going in that stew. "We'll just have to see about that, now, won't we?" As I expected, she stomped by without a glance in our directions, too intent on setting her husband straight. One day, that man would learn he was always wrong; even when he was right, as long as he was married to her, he was wrong.
I motioned Fleur in behind me and tried my stew. Damn, it did need salt. Still, just in case I was wrong, I offered a spoon to Fleur, who tried it cautiously. "Needs salt."
"Damn," I mumbled, throwing a handful in and stirring. "What's got you in the dumps?"
"In ze…ze dumps?" she wrinkled her nose. "I am not in ze garbage, Mel."
"Upset," I rolled my eyes. "What's got you so upset? You look like someone killed your cat."
"It ees nothing," she mumbled, shaking her head and looking away. I rolled my eyes again and forced some more stew on her. "Better."
"Thought so, thanks. And it's clearly not nothing, because you're absolutely miserable. Did Bill do something stupid?"
"No!" she exclaimed. "No, Bill ees perfect! Zere is nothing he could ever do wrong."
I had to smile at those words because I knew exactly how she felt saying them. I happened to know a very similar boy who could never do anything wrong. Or, rather, who could do a lot wrong and get away with it every single time. "All right, so what's bothering you, then? Something's clearly on your mind."
"Well…" she fiddled with her ring again. Then, she looked up at me with wide, worried eyes. "Mel, do you…do you like me?"
This stunned me just enough that I was unsure of how to answer. I could not think of the last time someone just outright asked if I liked them like that, like we were six years old on the playground deciding if we should be friends forever or not. It was not that I was unsure – I knew that I liked Fleur – but the question itself was just so strange that my Ravenclaw mind tried to figure out where it came from, what prompted it, and just kept coming up blank.
"Ginny calls me..." she wrinkled her nose distastefully, "Phlegm. She thinks I do not 'ear 'er, but I do. And Mrs. Weasley, she also finds me unsuitable. Zey do not think I really love Bill. Zey think I am not good enough, not suitable for zere family. I fear that…per'aps I am not. If Bill is the only one that can stand to be around me…maybe I am…" she shrugged helplessly, "maybe I am not the one 'e ees meant to be with. 'is family means so much to 'im. I cannot ask 'im to choose."
"Oh." It seemed grossly inadequate to make such a tiny noise in response to a woman with such a massive weight on her mind and heart, but I just was not sure what else to say. Simply getting the words off of her chest seemed to do wonders for Fleur, though, who stared wide-eyed at the wall as if this news had surprised her. "D'you love him?"
"Bill? Of course I do!" she exclaimed as if any notion otherwise was ridiculous.
"Then, sod the lot, Fleur. You'll never have a comfortable seat at Christmas, but we're gearing up for a war. Keep a tight hold on what you love." You never know when it will be taken from you. When it will be killed. When you will. But, I could never say that to her. Instead, I waved away the fire under the pot and announced. "This is done. Help me serve."
This post took a vastly different direction than I originally intended, but I hope you like it anyway. It's really just filler anyway. I know the story's moving slowly right now, but it'll pick up. Thanks for sticking with it! I love the reviews I'm getting, and if you have any complaints, criticism, ideas, anecdotes, whatever, send it my way!
Next Chapter: The Thought That Counts