Hello, all!
I know, I'm sorry. It's been awhile. It's been a rough few weeks. This week in particular has been difficult and heavy and overwhelming, and I simply haven't had much motivation to do anything except work and lie in bed, but we're persevering. In the event that no one has told you yet today, you're beautiful and loved and important, and I appreciate all of you for being here and being patient with my (unfortunately) sporadic updates for the time being. The funk won't last forever, so I appreciate your patience.
Truthfully, I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, but it is what it is. The holidays are coming, the exhaustion is setting in, and I'm having a bit of difficulty finding the motivation to write when the weather is so COLD. Winter is not my favorite of the holidays, so we're praying for spring at this point, and winter has barely even started.
Guest: Rita Skeeter is quite possibly one of the more annoying characters in the series, although at the moment Ron takes the cake. I haven't actually decided if she'll be in this story or not in any capacity. I LOL'd at your review because he really does just want any attention he can get, doesn't he?
Bookcozy: Ron and Hermione are just…so complicated at the moment. Ron always was a bit shallow, unfortunately. But that's what we have a Weasley twin for! If George were real it would disrupt my life haha. Fictional characters and storylines pull me in so deeply that it's so hard to let go of them once it's over. I think that's the reason I like FanFiction so much too. I don't have to say goodbye if I keep writing the endings I'd have preferred. I will go to my deathbed upset that Fred Weasley is dead in canon. I refuse to accept it.
Chapter Seven
"You're certain that this is a good idea, dear?" Mrs. Weasley asked her anxiously over breakfast the next morning.
She'd asked it about a thousand times since she'd come downstairs, and she might have found that more annoying if she wasn't asking herself the very same question every five minutes.
Working in a joke shop…what had she been thinking?
She'd done a lot of crazy things in her lifetime, but it was possible that this one took the cake. It was so very…unlike her. But Katie had thought it a marvelous idea the evening before when it had been mentioned over dinner. They'd spoken several more times over the course of the evening — mostly about the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures — but she'd seemed to think this was her first step into "doing things she wouldn't have before." A real "step in the right direction" of getting over Ron.
Fred and George had seemed to find this amusing, though they mostly kept this to themselves, which she was grateful for. She didn't think they particularly cared why she was doing it, so long as they could get some rest in between closing and opening the store.
Even still, Hermione thought she might have been losing it. Really 'gone too far' levels of losing her mind. Potentially 'needed to be admitted' levels of losing her mind.
Which, really, was ridiculous because she'd thought that about Harry and still gone along with every wild scheme, and she'd been…fine.
Mostly fine. Most of the time.
The shop was no different. A bit out of character, a bit out of touch, but at least there was no risk of death.
At least she didn't think so. Maybe she ought to have clarified the specifics with the twins first to be sure…
"Hermione?"
She startled from her thoughts at the sound of Ginny's amused query.
Shaking her head to dislodge her thoughts, she blinked up at the Weasley matriarch and said, "I'll be fine. It's just Fred and George —"
"Yeah, mum has been trying to tell herself that about those two for the past twenty one years —"
Mrs. Weasley hit her daughter lightly with her dish towel.
"Ginevra, don't say that —"
"Are you saying you haven't?" she asked her mother, grinning widely over her toast when her mother hesitated.
"Well, don't scare the poor girl," she said eventually. "She's supposed to marry one of them soon, and she might run off if we —"
Hermione couldn't tell if she was joking or not, but Ginny found this information very amusing and erupted into loud laughter.
"She's met Fred and George before," she said amusedly. "If she were going to run off, I'd think she'd have done it by now. But it's nice to know the real reason you're so worried about her working at the shop, mother. Think she might see too much and decide she really ought to make a run for it?"
"There's a chance of that," Hermione muttered, causing Ginny to laugh and Mrs. Weasley frowned at her in concern, but she waved the comment away distractedly. "I'm kidding. Really, it'll be fine. They could really use the help anyway."
"It would be nice to see them for longer than five minutes before they go running back to that shop again," Mrs. Weasley admitted reluctantly. "They don't eat or sleep nearly enough —"
Ginny rolled her eyes and gave Hermione a long suffering look from behind her back.
"You'd say that even if they came over here the size of boulders, Mum," she said impatiently. "They look like they've been eating enough from where I'm standing. When have you ever known either of them to skip a meal?"
"Don't encourage them, Ginevra," Mrs. Weasley scolded. "It's hard enough getting them over here for Sunday dinners —"
"After all that time she spent worrying that they wouldn't get anywhere in life, you'd think she'd be relieved they're so successful."
"Well, of course, I am!" the older woman huffed and Hermione hid her amusement by rinsing her plate off in the sink. "But I wouldn't mind seeing them more often. And I suppose if Hermione thinks that this is best…"
"You worry too much, Mum," Ginny said, rolling her eyes. "Hermione is perfectly capable of hexing them both —"
"Might lose my job for that though," Hermione said casually. Ginny snorted. "Look, I've got to go. I've told them I'd be there at nine, and I'm already late. Its my first day —"
"It's the twins," Ginny scoffed. "They're late to everything."
True, but Hermione wasn't. Or at least she hadn't been late before the last several weeks. It was becoming a habit, and she despised it, but now wasn't the time to dwell on that. She was running late as it was, so she merely waved at Ginny and Mrs. Weasley and apparated away before they could start distracting her again.
Mrs. Weasley had begun doting on her from the moment she'd come down that morning under the guise of concern that she'd agreed to work with the twins. Hermione highly suspected that much of her concern was stemming from the evening before, but she deliberately chose to pretend that it wasn't.
The evening had been as terribly awkward and horrid as she'd imagined it to be. When she'd come back from the cellar, George had kept conversation flowing as if nothing was off, and she'd have thanked him profusely if it wouldn't have made things more awkward. As it was, she'd merely taken her spot next to him again with the other bottle of wine and did her level best to pretend like she couldn't see the glances that everyone was sending her way.
All but Ron, who was deliberately trying not to meet her eyes. Nevermind the fact that he was the one person she'd wanted to look at her. Romilda hadn't mentioned anything off, and dinner had continued as though a huge bomb hadn't been dropped in the middle of it before they'd retired to the drawing room again.
The entire night had been devoted to getting to know the other fiancés, but she'd been overly distracted by the drama of her own relationship to pay much attention to any of them. Other than the twins, Katie, Ginny, and Harry, she hadn't talked to much of anyone. Ron and Romilda had avoided her for the entire evening and both Audrey and Lydia had talked to her in passing, and they both seemed rather nice, but she hadn't really been in the socializing sort of mood.
Calling it a night had been a blessing, even if she had merely gone home, slipped off her dress, and cried herself to sleep. She'd woken with a horrible headache and a deep regret for the choices she'd made in her life so far, but at least she had something to do today that could distract her from the fact that she was miserable and mopey.
Even if the thing she had to distract her was one of the life choices she was currently regretting.
The alley hadn't yet filled with people as she rushed from the apparition point toward the orange and purple building down the road. It was almost more blinding in the emptiness of the alley than it was when it was teeming with people, but she was grateful at least that she didn't have to force her way through a large crowd, only a few early birds who were moving from shop to shop before the rush hit. It took her only half the time it might have normally to reach the shop door, and she breathed a sigh of relief when it pushed open for her. She hadn't even thought to ask what to do if the door were locked.
She really should have asked more questions ahead of time.
The bell chimed above her, but George didn't look up from whatever paperwork he had in front of him at the till.
"You're late."
Odd how the disapproving tone of his voice made her entire stomach fall out from under her. She didn't think she'd ever actually heard him use that tone with anyone before, and she'd not have expected him capable of it.
She should not have assumed that neither of the twins would care that she was late. Of course, they were late to nearly everything — well, she didn't know that, she supposed. They had been late in school, but school had been years before and this was a business. A very successful one at that, and she didn't imagine that they'd made it so by being tardy.
She truly could not stand the thought of being late, and she'd been up ages. What had she been doing all this time? Dilly-dallying. So, really, she deserved it, even if it felt like she was living in an alternate reality.
She'd done plenty of things she'd regretted before, but being told off by George Weasley, of all people, was quite possibly the lowest she'd ever stepped.
"Yeah, I — I'm sorry," she stuttered, trying to find a legitimate excuse that wasn't 'I'm having second thoughts about this.' "I — well, I shouldn't have been, but your mother — or was it Ginny? I can't remember, but it —"
George looked up from the papers in front of him to eye her in amusement.
"Hermione, I'm joking."
Her heart stuttered to a start again, and there was a swooping relief in her stomach, even as the annoyance flooded her veins. Going by the grin widening on his face, she was certain the annoyance showed on her features as well.
"Well, of course you are," she said with an eye roll. "When aren't you?"
He chuckled at her, ignoring the barb completely.
"I half-expected you not to show," he said, stacking the papers into a folder beside him and vanishing them with a wave of his hand. "Figured that you might have decided you'd gone insane and run for the hills."
"Why does everyone keep saying that?" she said with a huff. "Do I look like the sort of person who does that?"
"You mean to say that you didn't consider it then?"
She opened her mouth to answer, but there were no words that came out. She narrowed her eyes on him when he pursed his lips to keep from laughing at her, clearly trying to maintain some sense of feigned superiority.
"Semantics," she said, crossing her arms across her chest and refusing to admit that she'd walked herself into a trap.
He snorted.
"Do you always have to have the last word?"
"Do you always have to smirk like that?"
"Fair enough," he conceded, making his way around the front counter and walking toward her. "C'mon so I can show you a few things before we open —"
He'd only barely made it around the counter when the sound of footsteps, and Fred's inquiring voice floated out from the back.
"George, where did we put the — you're late."
Hermione rolled her eyes at George's attempts to withhold his laughter when Fred appeared from the hallway and caught sight of her, immediately rearranging his features into careful disapproval.
"You can stop that now," she said blankly. "George already tried that when I got here —"
"You git!" Fred said, shooting George an exasperated look. "You said that I could do it!"
"You were busy —"
"Because you sent me back there to —"
"You planned this?" Hermione interrupted indignantly.
They stopped their momentary squabbling to blink at her simultaneously.
"Of course," they said together as if the alternative were entirely unimaginable.
"This is my five minute notice."
George snorted and Fred grinned winningly at her. George draped an arm around her shoulders and led her toward the opposite end of the store.
"Let's go, you need a crash course in the products," he said. She refrained from asking if there was risk of injury with such a course, and merely stepped out from under his arm, as he turned to direct his next words to his brother. "The keys to the till are on my desk under the paperwork from Saturday that you promised you were going to do."
"Must have slipped out of my head," Fred said in a way that did not match the words leaving his mouth. George snorted, but Fred was gone before he could retaliate.
"My arse," he muttered. Hermione huffed at him for his language, but bit her tongue. There were no customers here at the moment so it really wasn't her business what he was saying. He grinned winningly at her, and stopped near the window where the WonderWitch products were kept. "Right, so, WonderWitch line, I'm sure you're very familiar —"
"Why would you assume that I'm familiar?" she said, trying to determine if she should be offended or not.
"You're a witch, aren't you?" he said, raising an eyebrow at her.
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
"I'm really beginning to regret this," she muttered to herself, ignoring his chuckle from beside her. "I'm familiar with some of it. I disapprove of most of it."
Except the Pygmy Puffs. And the concealer she used on her arm that he didn't know about. Otherwise, she had little to no interest in the WonderWitch line.
"Color me surprised," he said sarcastically, causing her to roll her eyes. "Flirting candy, cosmetics, daydream charms, a wide range of love potions —"
She'd always noticed that they had quite a few products under their love potion section. Of course, she'd always wondered what the differences could possibly be. A love potion had a straightforward application, she didn't particularly see how they could be all that different from each other.
"Why are there so many? Don't they do the same thing?"
"Course not," he snorted, picking up two items from the large flower-shaped shelves they stored them on. "Most of them, of course, will make someone become infatuated with you, but there are some that are intended to recognize infatuation. Love is Blind Eye Serum, for example," he said, holding out a thin vial of purple, shimmering liquid that she took hesitatingly. "Two drops in each eye, and you'll be able to tell which sad sacks fancy you. Plus there's the added bonus that they'll find your eyes simply marvelous until the effects wear off. Two birds, as they say."
She tried not to let her intrigue at this show too much on her face, though she couldn't quite help herself from studying the vial in the light as if she were trying to catalog the differences between what she was holding and a regular love potion.
"Crush Blush," he said, pulling a small compact mirror out from a bright pink box. It was the shape of a seashell in a pretty gold color, and the inside appeared similar to any other blush she'd have gotten at any other shop. "Causes the cheeks of the people who wear it to flush any time they're around someone they find attractive —"
"Why would someone willingly give away their crush?" she said in confusion.
She'd always been a blunt, straightforward sort of person, but not even she could imagine doing such a thing. Even with Ron, she'd be horribly awkward about the whole thing.
"I see blokes buy these more often than birds, tell you the truth," he said, placing both items back on the shelves, and leading her toward another section of the store that housed an ungodly amount of fireworks. "Suppose if you're a shy bloke, it's easier to find out through more nefarious means if a bird likes you rather than asking yourself. Not all of us are blessed with my swoon-worthy charisma."
She gave him a long-suffering look, and refused to say anything. He was quite charismatic, but she didn't think saying so would do anything for his massive ego.
"Just keep talking, George, before I change my mind and leave you two to the dogs," she said when he smirked at her.
He laughed, but obliged, walking her quickly through a range of products that she was certain she would not remember by the end of the day. They had far more items on their shelves than she'd really noticed before — a large array of fireworks, several types of Skiving Snackboxes, muggle prank items ("There's always a few nutters that come through"), defense items, various potions that could make one break out into boils or (her least favorite) have long bouts of diarrhea. It was sort of overwhelming when she was looking at it all when the shop was entirely empty, and it would take her days to manage to remember it all.
"Mondays are the slowest," George said, leading her back up to the till. "You can stay with Verity for today and she'll show you how to run the front counter. She doesn't get in until eleven, so I'm afraid you're stuck with me in the meantime."
"And Fred?" she said pointedly. She hadn't seen the elder twin since he'd come in asking for the keys to the till earlier and it was suspiciously silent in the back of the shop.
"He'll be in the back trying to restock products," he said in answer, flicking his wand toward the doorway so that the sign flipped to open. "We try to avoid being on the floor at the same time if we can help it, what with being drawn so thin as it is. Once it picks up, he'll come out. Plus he's got to finish that bloody paperwork!"
The last was said pointedly, loudly enough to carry to the back of the shop.
"Piss off, George!" Fred yelled back from the direction of the workroom.
Hermione snorted, wondering distinctly how it was possible that these two men had managed to run a successful business. It became clearer as the day progressed, however. The first hour the store was open it was silent. George did whatever paperwork Fred was supposed to have finished, muttering all the while that he was going to put worms in Fred's pasta later. There were only two customers who came in in that time frame, both regulars who hadn't needed any help with the products and they'd been in and out in minutes.
Hermione busied herself by asking George hundreds of questions that she was sure were incredibly annoying — and more than slightly nosey — about the paperwork he was doing. Most of it was financial, and she tried not to look at the numbers on the pages as it didn't seem like the sort of thing that she should be doing. She didn't know what any of them meant anyway, but she was certain that the gist of it was that the twins were more well off than she'd originally suspected, though they were still trying to climb back from whatever hole the war had left them in.
Verity had come in at eleven exactly, passing coffees to her bosses and looking apologetically at Hermione.
"I'm so sorry, I totally forgot you were starting today," she said. "I'd have grabbed you something. Course, I don't know what you like so that's —"
"Don't worry about it, really," Hermione said, waving her away. "I don't drink coffee."
"You will working here, believe me," Verity said with a laugh, taking George's spot as he went to take Fred his coffee. "I didn't before I started, but when you've got people setting off fireworks and tossing Pygmy Puffs about like they're Quaffles, you'll need the energy. And that's before you meet Eugene."
It was the second time she'd heard the boy's name since she'd visited the shop, and she'd been about to ask for more details, but a customer had entered and Verity had immediately done what she was best at, greeting them perkily and offering to help if they needed anything.
It had been the start to the madness. It was hard to tell when it had gone downhill. It happened so quickly that Hermione couldn't have picked out the exact moment if she'd tried. One moment there was a group of three girls giggling over the WonderWitch line, and the next there were fifty customers trying to pile in at once. The noise had increased exponentially until she and Verity practically had to shout to be heard. Fred and George did what they did best — walked immediately into the chaos and demanded its attention as if it were nothing more than a minor snow storm rather than the avalanche it felt like to her.
Every time she'd looked up, the two of them were surrounded by groups of people, demonstrating or explaining products, convincing people to buy more than they'd likely come for originally, eliciting the laughs she suspected that they really craved in all of it. On several occasions, she'd seen them talking quite personally with several customers, as if they had a genuine interest in their patrons outside of their business. If she hadn't been so busy trying to learn the wand movements that Verity was performing each time someone checked out, she'd have marveled at their ability to command a room, to captivate an audience, to personalize every conversation they had despite the hundreds of people that came through every day. It was wholly different to see them in their element than it was to see them making mediocre jokes over the dinner table.
As far as she was able to tell, they were as at home and comfortable in this environment as they would have been relaxing on the couch at home.
She could not say the same at the moment. Hermione was afraid she wasn't much help during the entire thing. She had no idea how to answer the questions some people asked her, and she almost felt like she was running around with her head cut off. How they did this every day was really beyond her.
By the time one o'clock came around and they'd managed to close the shop for lunch, her legs felt like jelly and her feet ached, and she was certain that her hair was near completely out of the loose plait she'd tied it back in when the morning had started.
The moment Fred had managed to lead out the last customer and closed the door with a 'Be Back in An Hour' sign, she collapsed into the front counter with a groan.
"This is what you call slow?" she said to George incredulously. "I've half a mind to kick you in the shin."
Fred grinned, bounding over to her as if he had all of the energy in the world. She hated that about him. How could he not be exhausted?
"It's exhilarating, isn't it?" he said, leaning into the counter across from her with his chin in his hands. She nearly rolled her eyes, but she was starting to think he liked annoying her, and she hated that about him too.
"Have you hit your head?" she said. "I feel like I've been stampeded by a herd of hippogriffs."
George grinned, leaning against the counter and tossing Fred a bag of what clearly had his lunch in it.
"You were running about the country with Harry for a year and this is what feels like a stampede?" he said, pulling out several sandwiches, crisps, and a banana. He waved to Verity when she said she'd be back, and unwrapped his sandwich immediately.
"Voldemort never had me running from biting teacups trying to chomp on my ankles," she said pointedly, taking a large swig of water from the water bottle she'd hidden behind the counter. She hadn't had the time to drink it before and she nearly downed the entire thing.
"Ah, yes, Rebecca," Fred said with a fond shake of the head. "She loves the biting teacups. You've really got to watch her when she comes in or she'll just let them all loose."
Hermione did not like the fact that he made this sound like a regular occurence, releasing her hair briefly so that she could put it back in a tight plait. The shop was still open another five hours and there was no way it would survive that long.
"You should eat," George said when she'd finished and merely went back to leaning against the counter. She wanted to sit down, but there wasn't anywhere to do so out here, so she made do. But she had absolutely no desire to eat.
"I didn't bring anything," she said distractedly, toying with the end of her braid. She turned to look at him when he sighed, and passed her his other sandwich. She blinked at it. "What is this?"
"A sandwich," he said dryly, smirking when she rolled her eyes at him. "You need to eat."
"I'm not hungry —"
"You'll be whining later if you don't eat, Hermione —"
"I don't whine," she said, crossing her arms. Fred snorted from across from her, biting into his apple loudly and watching the two of them with poorly concealed amusement. Hermione shot him a reproachful glance before she looked back at George. "Besides, you'll be hungry if you don't eat that or I assume you'd have just brought the one. I don't want to take your food."
"I'm not hungry," he said, lying through his teeth. Fred grinned wider, still munching on his apple as if he were watching a drama unfold directly in front of him.
"George, this is not —"
"You can either take it or I'll force feed it to you," he said, setting it down in front of her and directing his attention to the crisps instead. Hermione raised an eyebrow condescendingly.
"Oh?" She said slowly. "And how exactly do you think that's going to work? You're just going to hold me down and make me eat it?"
"A bit more involved than I was thinking," he said, smirking at her devilishly. "I was just going to go and floo call my mother and tell her that you're refusing to eat, but I didn't realize you wanted to be under me quite so badly. You could have just asked, love."
Hermione spluttered indignantly at the suggestion, and Fred burst into raucous laughter at the pink tinge to her cheeks.
"George Weasley, you — you —"
There were truly not enough words in her vocabulary to express what she was thinking about him at the moment.
"Hermione Granger, lost for words," George said jokingly. "Never thought I'd see the day."
"You are the most annoying person I've ever met," she said with a huff, taking the sandwich and opening it roughly. "I'm only eating this to shut you up."
"If that helps you," he said with a snort.
"Look at you two," Fred said, pretending to wipe a tear from under his eye. "Already fighting like an old married couple."
Hermione scowled at him.
"I take it back," she said to George. "He's the most annoying person I've ever met."
"At least you don't have to live with him," George muttered, grinning at his twin when he stared back at him blankly.
Fred stood, sticking his nose in the air dramatically and snatching his lunch from the counter.
"If I'm not appreciated around here, I'll just find somewhere else to eat my lunch," he said, walking toward the office. "You can think about how mean you were to me while I'm away."
George snorted.
"You can do that paperwork while you're moping in there," he responded, laughing loudly when Fred responded by sending him a rude gesture that made Hermione scold him viciously. Fred acted like he didn't even hear her, entering the office without a backwards glance.
"The two of you have horrible manners," she said, taking her irritation with Fred out on George instead. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and continued eating his crisps casually. "And what's the deal with the paperwork?"
"Nothing," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "He just hates doing it. Leaves it to me usually, but he's supposed to be doing it because he threw a wet start firework into the shower while I was using it."
Hermione had to hide her amusement at this information by taking another bite of the sandwich he'd given her. It was ham and cheese — her favorite — but still she wasn't particularly interested in it. She was sure it tasted fine, but nothing really tasted good at the moment, as if her emotions had completely deactivated her taste buds.
"How are you doing anyway?"
The question took her off guard, and she stopped chewing to look up at him in surprise.
"I — I'm fine," she lied, looking away to avoid his penetrating gaze.
"You were late," he said pointedly.
"You said you didn't care about that," she said with a snort.
"That's not what I said," he said. "I played it off, I didn't suggest I agreed with it. You've been late more times in the last three weeks than for the entirety of the time that I've known you."
There was a part of her that really wanted to snap at him to mind his own business. That's what she'd have done if it had been Ron, but Ron would not even have noticed quite so much as George appeared to. The other part of her was too exhausted to come up with a good excuse for her behavior, even if he'd have seen right through it anyway.
"I'll be fine," she said, sighing heavily and pushing the sandwich away from her. She'd only eaten half, but it felt like lead in her stomach and she couldn't bring herself to eat any more. George didn't appear put off by this, grabbing the half-eaten sandwich and eating it quickly, seeming appeased by the fact that she'd eaten something, even if she hadn't managed the whole thing. "Besides, you've been late for everything the entirety of your life. Including being born based on your mother's complaining. I'd think you'd have found my tardiness more amusing than concerning."
He gave her a pointed look.
"You aren't me, Hermione," he said as if this should have been obvious to her. "Besides, I can find something both amusing and concerning."
She should have snapped at him. He might have been more observant than his brother — apparently, although she'd be monitoring that assessment very closely from now on — but she didn't feel like it was appropriate for her to be complaining about her ex to her fiancé. Who was related to her ex. Who she did not actually want to be her ex.
It was all so very complicated. Far too emotional for her, and she operated far better under logical situations than emotional ones.
"I'm fine, George."
"You're a terrible liar."
"You're a terrible…truth…er. Truther."
He stared at her for a very long moment as if he weren't quite sure if she'd suffered a concussion.
"We're going to have to call the wedding off if that's the best you can do, Hermione," he said with a snort. "I can't have my children going about saying something so ridiculous."
She rolled her eyes, but looked at him for a long moment afterward. Children. The idea of George Weasley having children felt absurd. He was basically an overgrown child himself, and yet here they were. Expected to procreate.
She deliberately ignored that it was them, and decided to ask the question she'd been wondering in the weeks since they'd been paired.
"Did you even want children?" George stopped chewing immediately and looked over at her in surprise. She blushed a little. Perhaps that was a personal question, considering their minimal conversations before now. People didn't typically ask strangers questions like that — she didn't even think she'd ever asked Harry that question. "I — sorry, I shouldn't have asked that. It sort of came out and it — well, you were talking about children and it —"
"Hermione, breathe," he laughed, wadding up his lunch and throwing it in the direction of the waste bin. She had no idea why it annoyed her so much that he made every throw, but she couldn't even walk up the stairs without tripping over her own feet. "I just wasn't expecting the question, is all."
"Well, did you?"
He rolled his eyes at her tone, but she couldn't help it. She fell back on her know-it-all nature as a defense mechanism and it felt horribly awkward at the moment.
"Eventually," he said vaguely. "At some point, I imagined I would if I ever got to that point in my life, but it wasn't an immediate concern. I don't exactly have my life planned out —"
"You don't plan anything."
She hadn't meant for it to sound so judgemental when it had come out, but she winced when there was a spark of irritation on his face that quickly smoothed over. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, and spoke before she could apologize for being so rude.
"I plan plenty of things," he said blandly. "I run a business, Hermione, I can't afford to plan nothing —"
"I didn't mean that —"
"But, no, I don't see the point in having a five or ten year plan outside of vague ideas, though I'm sure you have a folder somewhere that's color coded with what your life is supposed to look like," he said. She rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to speak again, but he kept talking. "The only thing that that's going to do is disappoint you when five years from now you've done eighty percent of it, but not all of it. Nevermind the fact that the things you did do put you miles ahead of where you were the year before. I don't see the point of living my life that way — life isn't meant to be planned down to the last letter, Hermione. And I certainly don't want to be the sort of bloke who runs a successful business but didn't have five kids by the time I was thirty like my parents did. I have a general picture of what I want my life to look like, and I make smart decisions to get myself there. You know because in ten years I might be a nutter like dad, trying to learn Muggle magic tricks with seven kids —"
"There's not going to be seven kids," Hermione said firmly. He grinned at her.
"I could afford seven kids —"
"It has nothing to do with the cost, and everything to do with my sanity, George," she said with a pointed look. "And I get what you're saying. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to sound so…backhanded. I just — well, I guess I just don't understand how you can be so nonchalant all of the time. I've got sixty lists back at the Burrow and you're…"
He grinned at her.
"Enjoying life in all its glory, yes," he said, laughing when she closed her eyes as if she were praying for patience. "I'll teach you one day —"
"I'll pass, thanks."
"It wasn't an option," he said before carrying on before she had the opportunity to bristle. He'd learned long ago to cut his mother off mid-stride, and Hermione was no different. The yelling got far worse if they went on too long. "But if it helps you to plan out the lives of our five children —"
"There will not be five children."
"You said no to seven children."
"Most people would say no to seven children," she said indignantly. "And I'm saying no to five as well unless you have a way of carrying them all yourself —"
"Alright, four —"
"Two."
"Three."
"Two."
"Three and a half."
"How do you get half of a child?" she said before holding up her hands hastily when he opened his mouth to retort. "No, I don't want to know. If this marriage law thing is not repealed, we will not be having more than two children. I've got a life to be living that isn't running about trying to keep your demon offspring from blowing holes in my kitchen."
He grinned widely, and raised an eyebrow.
"I'll be telling them you called them that, you know," he said in fake superiority. "I'll be their favorite in no time flat, I figure. Just me and my four demon offspring —"
He was so annoying. She knew he was doing it on purpose, but she didn't care. She was petty. She did not have the capacity to rise above.
"Well, if they turn out like you and Fred, they'll be demon offspring," she said casually. "But you've also got Percy's genes in you as well, so I figure that we've got some chance of having a Head Boy."
The grin fell immediately from his face, and he paled in horror.
"Don't say that," he said, pointing at her accusingly. "That's not funny. We don't joke about that."
"I think it would be quite nice to have a Head Boy in the family —"
"You sound just like my mother," he grumbled. "More talk like that and I'll ban you from this store."
"You can't afford to do that," she snorted, standing and waving at Verity as she made her way toward the shop from outside. An hour lunch was not even nearly enough time to prepare for the rush that was incoming, but she had no choice. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with Percy. He's smart, he's law-abiding, he's attractive —"
Her praises of his brother seemed to harm him more than the suggestion that he might father a child who would end up a prefect. He gaped at her for a long moment before he appeared to gather his wits enough to yell for his twin.
"FRED! GET OUT HERE, I'M GETTING SCARED!"
She couldn't help but laugh. Ridiculous, the both of them, but it was not at all lost on her that he'd managed to distract her from that resounding sadness that sat so heavily on her chest.
She might have hated herself for agreeing to help them in the shop over the next six hours of chaos, but that sadness was less overwhelming for the entirety of the time she was there, and she supposed she only had George Weasley to thank for that.