A/N I have to heavily thank my fabulous and amazing British new friend, Bekah Read, that has been helping me with this for this chapter. I relied on her extensively. You will see why. I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as we did! It was so fun to write!

Chapter 12

The first thing George noticed upon waking was the crick in his back. The second thing was the warm body wrapped around his and the curls in his face. Huffing out an amused breath, he batted at the hairs that had tangled in his beard and caught in his mouth.

She snuffled in her sleep and shifted so that her lips brushed his neck. Shuddering, George traced a thumb down the side of her face as he stared at the ceiling. He should move her to the bed, or wake her. The sun peaking through the curtains told him they'd slept there on the floor all night.

He could sit there on the floor with her a little while longer. It wouldn't hurt anything. They didn't have any solid plans for the afternoon anyway. For now, he could just sit there and hold Hermione while she slept.

After the breakdown she'd had the day before, she no doubt needed it. He couldn't imagine having to relive all of his worst and most traumatic memories all at once. If it hadn't been for her skill at occlumency, he knew she would have fallen apart at Snape's feet. His own skill likely wouldn't have been enough, and he'd never been physically tortured. She was so strong and he loved her for it.

And someday, when they'd destroyed all the horcruxes and dealt with every Death Eater—if they were still alive—maybe he could tell her. He hoped it would be ok with Fred.

Hermione stormed into the sitting room a few days later, hair still wet from her shower, looking much too close to either tears or an outburst of angry accidental magic for George's liking. Making his final move in the chess match he'd been losing to Gideon, he turned as she came to a stop right beside him.

"What's happened?"

"I've been so stupid, George!"

Reaching for one of her fisted hands, George frowned. "I doubt that very much."

Pinching the bridge of her nose with her other hand, she shook her head and sounded like she was trying very hard not to cry. "Oh George. I was wrong on the year. Regulus might have already taken the mark, but he's still a year behind Sirius. I don't know much about him but I do know that he finished school before he died." She looked back up at him, miserable. "We've at least a whole year before we can get the locket. I can't believe I thought we could have this done so fast. It was too easy. I should have known better, nothing in this war has ever been that easy."

His stomach dropped. A year. A year to keep her safe, to protect his family and watch over his brother. Feeling the frustration radiating off of her, George tried to think of something he could say.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to fight a little longer, love."

She scoffed. "But I'm tired of fighting. And running and hiding. I thought we could do this and maybe…"

George watched her as she wiped at her eyes and yanked her hand through her tangled wet hair. If he was honest, it didn't really change much. They had no idea how long it would take Snape to get the horcruxes from their various locations, and it wasn't as if they were going to be able to go back to their own time after they finished. He thought about telling her all of this, but he wasn't sure it would be helpful.

"What would you want to do after, Hermione?"

"I thought we could… Try to be happy here, build a life in the wrong time." She huffed a dry laugh. "It sounds ridiculous. But this damn war and that damn snake face bastard just…" Shaking her head, she shook her hand free from his and turned away. "I'm going back upstairs for a while. Have another look at my notes and see if I've missed anything else."

The weak, apologetic smile she cast him before she left made George wish he could cheer her up somehow. Not that he felt particularly cheery himself just then. Though he had noticed over the last week or so his mood had gradually lifted. Whether that was down to spending time with his uncles or the comforting presence of Hermione beside him every night he wasn't sure. Either way, he didn't like the idea of her sulking up in their room for who knew how many days.

"Didn't you say that in your future, the first war lasted until 1981?"

George had almost forgotten his uncle had been sitting there. Blinking out of his thoughtful daze, he frowned at Gideon. "What? Oh, that… yes. It goes on until Halloween 1981."

Gideon shrugged. "Well, so we have another year, still two early though, innit? Surely loads of lives would be saved in those two years."

"That's true. Still, we've just come off the last few years of fighting and all. She's not wrong, I'm tired of it too." He stood and stretched his back. "Not much can be done though."

"We all are… What did she mean by, 'snake faced?'"

Laughing at the reminder and his uncle's confused expression, George rubbed the side of his face. "Ah, well… turns out splitting your soul so many times does a number on your looks. Only saw the Dark Twat the once myself but, well after reincarnating he looked a bit more like his pet snake than a proper man."

"Interesting…" Gideon shook himself and leaned back in his chair. "So, what's the plan today? Fabian and I don't have anything going for Dumbledore. The two of you gonna mope about here?"

He tried to think. They needed to get out of the house and do something. Going back to the Burrow was out, he didn't think he was ready to face that again. Walking around Diagon would probably just be depressing for both of them, though they could do with some more time period appropriate clothing. George was a whizz at transfiguration, but charmed clothes just didn't fit the same.

Suddenly inspiration struck him.

"You know what, Uncle? I think I'm suddenly feeling a toothache coming on."

When Gideon looked up at him like he'd grown a second head, he smirked. "Feel like exploring muggle London?"

After poking his head in on Hermione to let her know he was popping out, and a quick chat with Fabian, the three of them apparated to Diagon Alley. George swapped a few Galleons for pounds and they stepped out onto Charing Cross road. Both of his uncles had occasionally ventured out of Magical neighborhoods with a muggleborn friend before he'd been killed, but never on their own. At least they all had acceptable looking muggle clothes.

"Why don't we take the Knight Bus? If you know approximately where this… what'd you call it? Dentist office?" Fabian still looked dubious at the idea of tooth healers. "If you know where it is, Ole Ern can get us there."

George nearly laughed. "Ernie? He's still driving in my time. A bit surprised he's lasted so long actually."

"Course he has. Been driving it for ages. Oh, except I heard he once took a break to try his hand at the muggle bus line. Did not end well." Gideon started to discreetly reach his wand arm out but George stopped him.

"No. I want to try and find it the muggle way. I told you, get her out of our world for a bit—totally." His uncles shared a look but he ignored them. "I only have the neighborhood. We'll have to ask directions once we get there." They still looked unimpressed. "How many dentists could there be in one area? We've got muggle money and we can read a street sign. How hard could it be?"

Some time later, as they stood together pondering the confused rainbow that was the tube line map, he realized that it might in fact be rather difficult.

"So… this one goes over the way we want to go. We could take this Northern line to the blue one here… Piccadilly? It looks like this mark means you change trains. This stop is…" Fabian squinted at the tiny writing on the map on the wall and then at the city map he'd picked up earlier in his hands. "Leicester square?"

George peered over his uncle's shoulder, unsure if he was right about his stop choice. "Are you sure that's the best way? What about this dark red one? Bakerloo. That looks…"

"No, no… this is the best way. We'll get onto that one at this Circus place anyhow, see? Then we'll stay on until we get to Watford. Easy."

Gideon glanced doubtfully at George and crossed his arms. "You know Fabian, for someone who urged magical transport, you sure seem eager to take charge of this venture."

Fabian sniffed. "Well someone had to. I'm the oldest…" Gideon scoffed. "And best at these sorts of things. Now come on, we better figure out the payment or we'll miss it."

Two hours later, they were no closer to their destination. Things had started off well, they'd figured out the fare rather easily and boarded the correct train. They had even made it off at Leicester square. Unfortunately, due mainly to the press of the crowds and misreading the signage, they had boarded the Eastbound Piccadilly train rather than the west.

Not realizing their mistake, all three of them became extremely distracted by a group of men that had definitely been day drinking, arguing very animatedly about something called football and whether or not their club, Leicester City, should be relegated in the upcoming match. Not knowing anything about what they assumed was a muggle sport but completely absorbed by how absolutely certain one of the men was that the team would come back and win the league, they had stayed on the line for another ten stops.

Finally realizing they were lost and having had enough of his brother's stubborn insistence that they were where they ought to be, Gideon had ushered them off and they'd boarded another train headed back the way they'd come. Hearing the stop for Kings Cross and forgetting at this point what it was they were waiting for, they once again exited the train.

After spending what seemed to George an irritatingly long time exploring the tube location at the familiar area—both of his uncles marveling at the magic that kept the entire Hogwarts train station separate from the busy muggle trains and underground—they boarded the Northern line. They remembered from the route they'd mapped that they needed to take that line, unfortunately by that point they'd become a bit turned around and taken it North.

Noticing that the Hempstead stop wasn't terribly far to the east from where they wanted to be, Gideon had insisted it wouldn't be too difficult to apparate. By now determined to master the damn underground, Fabian had refused and George, though worried about how late it was getting, felt similarly.

This time, they made absolutely sure they boarded the proper train. The southbound train was the most crowded yet, forcing them to stand. When they came to a particularly rough stop, Fabian tripped, knocking George into sitting passengers.

"Well, hello handsome." George felt his ear burn as he looked up from the breasts and into the face of the blonde young woman whose lap he'd fallen into. She was smiling lasciviously down at him, eyebrows waggling. Extremely uncomfortable but trapped on her lap thanks to the crowd, George tried for casual.

"Uh… afternoon. Nice day?"

She tossed her hair over her shoulder and laughed. "I'll say, handsome lad falling at my feet? Couldn't be better."

Laughing awkwardly, George kicked out behind him where he knew his uncles to be until someone grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet. "Please excuse him, he's so taken with his fiancé he's forgotten how to speak to other women." Gideon made a show of dusting him off before pushing him aside as well as he could in the crowd so he could talk to the leggy blonde himself. "What a waste." He shook his head in exaggerated disappointment as he reached for her hand, kissing the back of it like the good pureblood gentlemen he was.

Evidently impressed by his old fashioned gesture, she shoved her friend up from the seat beside her, pulling him down into her place. The friend ended up pressed chest to chest with Fabian, her initial irritation melting to a flirtatious smile almost at once. George couldn't hear what she said but judging by the pleased expression on his uncle's face, he assumed it was good. By the time they disembarked back where they started at Charing Cross, both Gideon and Fabian were tucking slips of paper with phone numbers into their pockets.

"What are you going to do with those? Do you even know how to use a telephone?"

They shared a look and gave him matching patronizing smiles. "We may not have ever taken the tube…"

"But it's not our first time picking up muggle birds." Gideon smirked. "Those blood purists have no idea what they're missing."

George scoffed and elbowed his uncle in the ribs as they made their way back to the line map. When Fabian opened his mouth to offer his thoughts again, George cut him off.

"No Fabian. We've done it your way and wasted nearly two hours and we still have to find the place once we get to Watford. And please don't even ask Gideon, we're here, we've committed. We're going to do what I suggested in the first place." George traced his finger along the Bakerloo line from Charing Cross and up to Watford. "We'll only have to be sure when we get to Baker Street that we're headed west towards Paddington and not Northwest towards Finchley, but it should be much easier."

He glared at his uncle, who picked carefully at his nails. "I don't know why you're glaring at me, Nephew. We got back here didn't we? Gideon and I even have dates."

Words failing him, George sighed and walked away, smirking when he heard Gideon smack the back of his brother's head.

"Twat."

Just short of an hour later, they were finally in Watford. Back on the street, George felt triumphant at having successfully navigated the muggle transit and couldn't wait to tell Hermione, but watching his uncles tease one another as they came up the steps behind him dulled the thrill.

Fred would have had a brilliant time too.

Suddenly Gideon's arm was around his shoulders. As he was a good few inches taller than his uncle, he was forced to lean down to his side as they walked. "Well, that wasn't so bad was it, nephew? I'd reckon Hermione will be properly impressed."

Fabian scoffed with amusement from his other side. "If that's all it took to impress a bird, she'd have to have awfully low standards."

"Oi!" His brother leaned around George to glare at him. "That's rich coming from you seeing as it was your fault we got lost. Once we started listening to George here, it was easy! For a trio of purebloods, it was pretty impressive."

Maybe it was the sudden rush of familial magic, or just the way they had purposefully included him, but George found himself brightening again. A smile turned up the corner of his mouth and crinkled his eyes as he shook off Gideon.

"Sure, she'll be impressed. But I'm hoping she'll be more impressed with the rest." He nodded up the street. "Come on, let's go find Hermione's parents."

"So, how do you think muggles find places when they don't know where they're going?"

Fabian looked around the busy street, reading business signs. "Looks like a typical business district. Could be close by."

Spotting a friendly looking older woman sitting on a bench nearby, George approached her. "Pardon me, I was wondering if you could help me?" She nodded enthusiastically, encouraging him to go on. "I'm trying to find a dentist office I know is in this neighborhood. I'm not sure the name or address, it's the particular healers… Ah that is, the dentists, that I'm after. How would you suggest I go about finding their office?"

Thinking for a moment, she smiled slightly and pointed at a pub up the street. "Well, if I were you I'd go up that way to Oddfellows. They've a public phone. If you ask to see their yellow pages, you can look up all the dentists that might be round here."

Having no idea what a 'yellow pages' was but confident they could figure it out after managing the underground, George thanked the woman and returned to his uncles. "Alright. I know what to do. Follow me gents."

"Why in Merlin's name do they need so many bloody teeth healers in one city?"

The yellow pages had turned out to be a massive book filled with every business and person that lived in the city, their address and phone number, all printed in extremely small script. It had been pretty easy to figure out, wizards used the alphabet too after all. Unfortunately, as Gideon had remarked, there were eight different dental offices in Watford alone.

George shook his head as he stared up at the sixth stop on their list. "At least I knew the neighborhood. This whole venture would be impossible if we had to search all of London."

"It's too bad the listing only had the office names and not the healers as well." Fabian inspected the sign for Dental Care: Dr. Gupta, DDS. "Not this one either than. Alright, how far is the next one?"

They had initially tried calling around to save time, but apparently dentists took late lunch hours and the first several had all asked for them to leave a message. Deciding they'd already wasted half the day anyhow, they'd copied the list and headed for the first by foot. Now an hour later, George was beginning to wonder if the gesture had been worth the headache.

"Just a ways up the street." He sighed. "Let's go."

Ten minutes later they were, at long last, standing in front of Hermione's parents dental office. First Rate Smiles: Dr's. Granger and Granger, DDS.

"Oh bloody finally. Do you need us to go in with you or can Fabian and I pop in that pub we passed a block back?"

George assured them he could do this last bit on his own and waved them off. One clueless wizard in there would be enough. He didn't want to scare Hermione's parents, especially after all he'd gone through to find them.

As George had never been in any kind of muggle healers office before, he hadn't any idea what to expect. It was surprisingly similar to St. Mungo's; clean, white walls with comfortable looking chairs meant for waiting. Nothing was too posh, it was their first practice after all, but it was nice, he supposed.

Knowing they had already been out much longer than they'd meant, George didn't waste time and walked up to the front desk. Unfortunately, the receptionist's seat was unoccupied. Sighing, he looked about the lobby in search of someone.

"I'm here! So sorry! I just had to pop back to help my husband with a patient." A woman who looked very much like he thought Hermione might if she had straight hair cut just past her chin and blue eyes rushed around to the back of the desk from down the hall. With a familiar smile, she sank into the seat and folded her hands on the desk. "Good afternoon, sir. Welcome, I'm Dr. Granger, how can I help you?"

It took George a moment to respond as his mind was occupied comparing mother to daughter. They looked so much alike and yet, different somehow. Helen's jaw was a bit more square and her brow more dainty. The hands though, those were exactly the same as her daughter's.

Helen cleared her throat, snapping him from what he hoped hadn't been too obvious an examination of her features. "Right, sorry. Bit slow this afternoon. My uh… my fiancé sent me out to find a dentist. She wanted her teeth um…" George floundered, suddenly unable to think what it was a tooth healer actually did.

"Cleaned?" She was watching him with an amused expression that reminded him so much of Hermione he forgot to be nervous.

"Yes, thank you, cleaned. She's recently had a bit of work done, something about smart teeth? We've just moved back from the continent see, and she wanted to have them looked at."

Laughing softly, Helen nodded and reached for a large, spiral bound book that looked meant for keeping appointments. "She had her wisdom teeth out. So perhaps a full exam then? Has she mentioned any pain or had any kind of discharge?"

"Uh… no?"

"Alright mister…?"

"George. George Prewett, ah and my lady's name is Helen."

The Helen in front of him looked back up at him, a little shock and a lot of amusement on her face. "No it isn't, that's my name as well!"

He smiled broadly at her. "It most certainly is. Helen Wilson, and more lovely than all the stars in the night sky. Lucky man, I am."

"And her as well, I think." She smiled warmly and flipped a page in her notebook. "So, George. Just an exam for your Helen? How about yourself? My husband and I each have an opening at 11:30 in two days, we could see you at the same time."

"Hmm…" George hadn't thought of that, mumbling out loud to himself. "I've never seen a tooth healer before…"

"Tooth healer?" Helen cocked her head to the side in confusion.

"Ah, I mean dentist. Never been."

Her confusion turned to indignant shock. "You've never seen a dentist? Never had your teeth cleaned, not even once? How on earth did you make it this long, you must be at least twenty."

Feeling a bit sheepish, George rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah… my uh, parents are a bit unconventional."

"Well…" She shook her head as she marked something down in her book. "That settles it. You're having a cleaning and exam too. There, I've put you down at 11:30 with my husband, Richard. I'll see your fiancé at the same time. Here…" she handed him two small cards which upon closer inspection, he realized were appointment cards.

Appointment cards in hand, George stepped back out onto the street, neither of his uncles anywhere to be found. Sighing and looking down at his watch, he headed for the pub up the street they'd mentioned. The Wishing Well seemed like a nice place for a drink and the smell emanating from the kitchen made his stomach growl, but they'd already been gone ages longer than he'd meant and he didn't want Hermione to worry. There was still another stop he wanted to make before they went home.

"Nephew! That didn't take long, all set?" Fabian took a final sip from a frosted glass and stood from the bar. "Come on Gid, his lady will no doubt be wondering what's keeping us."

"Oh, but I wanted to order some food! I'm starving!" Finishing the last of his pint, Gideon stood too. Rather than heading for the front door though, Fabian led them around through the pub out the back. As it was late afternoon, the old stone street was nearly empty and it wasn't hard to find an out-of-the-way nook to apparate from.

Back in Diagon, George shooed Fabian and Gideon on to order lunch from the Leaky while he ducked into another shop. He'd not meant to do this when he'd left that morning, but when they'd walked through the magical district he'd seen something in a window he knew Hermione had to have.

A/N so couple of things, Leister City was actually relegated in their match that weekend in 1978. I went to google to see what kind of interesting things happened in English football that season and it happened that they went through that city. so it was perfect. Also, I have no idea if seeing a dentist would have been a normal thing like it is now in the 60's-70's in the UK. My husband had never been to the dentist when we met and when asked about it, his mom didn't believe it. His older brother had been but not him. Anyway. I wanted to post this this morning but I haven't been sleeping well in nearly a week at 39 and a half weeks pregnant, contractions and now everyone in my life is sick and I felt like poo until after a nap this afternoon. But its Wed this week!