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content warning:
includes an intimate scene between characters
who are under the influence of alcohol,
| nothing graphic |
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It had been business as usual at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes since George returned to work at the beginning of July. But today as George was going through the usual tasks of helping customers, restocking shelves, and taking inventory, he found himself continuously checking the clock, counting down the hours to closing time. The reason for his anxious excitement was because that evening his best friend from his Hogwarts days, Lee Jordan, would be visiting for the first time since May.

The two friends hadn't seen each other since Fred's funeral, and if George was being completely honest with himself, he wasn't fully mentally present that day. He had to shut down all of his emotions and thoughts just to get through it, any words of comfort that any of his friends or family offered went in one ear and out the other, otherwise George knew he would have a full break down in front of the entire crowd. So really, George hadn't actually seen Lee since the Battle of Hogwarts itself.

"George!" the voice of an annoyed woman broke George's attention from the clock.

"Hmm?" he said, flicking his head toward Verity. The two of them hadn't really talked beyond business since Charlie walked in on her comforting him a week prior.

"I said there's a customer over by the Pygmy Puffs that has a question." Verity said impatiently while rolling her eyes at him, evidently she had been trying to get his attention for a while just to be ignored by him in his distracted state.

He nodded and left the girl standing at the counter without another word. There had been some tension between them since he had opened up to her, they hadn't really acknowledged what happened. But she didn't blame him, she thought it was quite brave of him to open up like that and she understood that it wasn't easy for him to be so vulnerable. She certainly wasn't going to treat him any differently because of it.

She rested her head in her hands as she leaned her elbows on the counter with a bored expression on her face when Charlie came up to the counter, setting down a box of love potions next to her.

"If you want to slip me a love potion, you'll have to be more sneaky than that, Weasley." Verity teased.

"I don't want to slip you anything Ver, especially since you seem to be smitten with another redhead anyways." Charlie shrugged as he opened the box to take inventory, making sure the amount of bottles matched the number on the piece of parchment in his hands.

"What are you on about?"

Charlie merely shrugged in response not breaking his eyes away from the parchment, he wouldn't tell Verity that the sight of her with his brother caused feelings of jealousy in his heart, especially since he was in denial about his own feelings anyway.

Verity's brows furrowed, she knew Charlie was talking about the scene that he had walked in on between herself and George and was growing annoyed by his suggestion that she had any sort of feelings for George.

"Charlie, I was comforting him. He was upset, that doesn't mean I'm in love with him, you idiot. That means I'm his friend. Everyone's been trusting him when he says he is completely fine when it's obvious he's not. Maybe you should pay more attention to your own brother rather than making up crazy stories about me in that stupid head of yours." Verity stated in a hushed tone, trying to keep quiet in case George was within earshot of them.

Before Charlie even had a chance to respond to her she retreated from the counter, clearly too annoyed to listen to anything he had to say to her, even if it was an apology.

-

The rest of the day, the three employees of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes worked alongside each other in silence, each dealing with their own internal conflicts and tensions between one another.

It was about ten past five when the bell above the door rang. Verity pulled her eyes away from the register she was counting and saw a tall man with long dreads and a familiar smile walk into the shop. She immediately abandoned her post and ran up to the man, wrapping her arms around his neck and nearly knocking the case of Simison Steaming Stout from his hands as he stumbled backwards.

He wrapped an arm around Verity and gently patted her on the back, "I missed you too, Ver." Lee said with a laugh.

She pulled away from him with a smile, "I'll let George know you're here."

Lee's arrival had softened Verity's demeanor almost immediately. It was actually Lee who introduced her to the twins, he and Verity had been partnered in potions during their second year and the rest is history. Verity will always acknowledge that of the three boys, Lee was her first friend. While Verity was friends with Fred and George throughout school, Lee was their best friend, like another brother. He truly was the glue that held their group together. Verity felt that Lee visiting was exactly what they all needed.

George was in his new office, he had set it up in an old storage room on the first floor. It wasn't really ideal as there were no windows, so it was a rather dark and depressing work environment despite having multiple lanterns in the room. The irony of working in a bleak dark room within an otherwise bright and happy joke shop didn't escape George, though he felt it was oddly fitting with how he was feeling in his life. Happy normal George on the outside, gloomy and grim George on the inside.

Though he would much rather do his paperwork in that room than have his old office upstairs. If he had kept his old office, Charlie would have no choice but to take over Fred's old room and that wasn't an option for George.

He was in the middle of balancing the store's accounts for the week when he heard a short knock on the door, knowing it would either be Verity or Charlie. Neither of which he was particularly thrilled to chat with at the moment, but he knew he couldn't avoid them forever.

"Come in."

Verity peeked her head in the door slightly, "Hey, Lee just got here."

Initially George wasn't thrilled at the sight of Verity, but her words lit up some excitement in him. He stood from the desk and promptly made his way out of the office. Verity quickly stepped away from the door to avoid him, he looked like a man on a mission and she wasn't keen on being run over in the process.

George and Lee greeted each other with a hearty hug and strong pats on each other's backs.

"Good to see you, mate." Lee said with a wide grin.

"You too. Listen, I've got a few things to finish up for the day, you can go ahead and head up to the flat if you want, Charlie should already be up there."

Lee nodded and turned his head to Verity who had just walked back from George's office and was making her way to leave for the day, "You're not staying?" he asked her with disappointment in his voice.

She shook her head and briefly glanced at George before responding, "Oh no, I was just going to head home. I didn't want to intrude on boy's night."

"Don't be silly! Since when have we ever left you out, Ver? You've always been one of the boys." Lee said with a laugh as he walked up and put an arm around her shoulder, preventing her from escaping.

She made eye contact with George, as if she was silently asking his permission to stay. Part of him didn't want her to stay, but part of him did. So much had changed since the last time they had all hung out together, the most obvious was that their group was missing one important member. He knew he shouldn't exclude her from the group after everything they had been through together. Losing Fred was hard enough, pushing away Verity wouldn't make things any easier or fix any of his problems.

He nodded at Verity, silently answering her question and she responded with a soft smile.

"Alright, I'll stay." she said, returning her attention to Lee.

"That's my girl!" he replied, giving her shoulders a gentle squeeze with his arm.

"I'll be up soon, make yourselves comfortable." George interjected before turning his back on them and returning to the office.

-

Charlie, Lee, George, and Verity found themselves laughing and chatting about old times over rounds of beer, wine, and firewhisky. They had lost all track of time and of their sobriety, but George didn't care. This was the most relaxed he had felt in months, he couldn't be sure if it was due to the alcohol or the presence of his friends, it was probably a mixture of both.

It was nearing 1 am when Lee decided he should head home. Charlie tried to offer him the couch to sleep on for the night, but he assured them that he was okay to take the Floo Network back to his own flat. As Lee stepped into the fireplace he grabbed a handful of floo powder and in his drunken state he slightly slurred the name of his flat as the green flames consumed him. Charlie and George noticed instantly and looked at each other in confusion.

"What did he say?" Charlie asked

George, who was quite drunk himself couldn't completely recall, so he merely shrugged his shoulders and shook his head at his brother.

Charlie rolled his eyes and grabbed a handful of floo powder himself, "I'm going to make sure he got home alright, I'll be back in a bit."

Of the four of them, Charlie drank the least since he absolutely hated the taste of firewhisky. He had only had one glass of wine, so he was in a much better state to go check on Lee than Verity or George had been. With a flash of green flames Charlie vanished from the flat, leaving Verity and George the last ones remaining.

George was sitting on the couch next to Verity, he was leaned back in a relaxed position with his eyes closed, his arms rested lazily over the back of the couch and he had a loose grip on a nearly empty bottle of beer in his right hand. He felt Verity lean closer to him, but her presence didn't bother him so he didn't open his eyes. He felt a poke of her finger suddenly prod at his cheek and he opened his left eye to glance down at the blonde woman next to him.

"Are you drunk?" she whispered with a giggle.

He smirked and closed his eyes again before replying, "Are you?"

"Yes." she giggled again, causing an adorable crinkle to appear on her nose.

While George was a sleepy drunk, Verity was a giggly one, he still remembered the first time he ever saw Verity get drunk. It was at his and Fred's 18th birthday party, she was still 17 years old at the time but that didn't stop her, and besides she wasn't the only underage student at the party who was drinking.

The party was held in the Gryffindor Common room. Normally parties weren't a big deal at school, though they were always careful to avoid Filch. But the excitement of being in Dumbledore's Army and the hatred they all felt for Umbridge inspired the students to make it one of the wildest parties Hogwarts had seen in recent years.

Verity was the queen of the dance floor that night, when the alcohol hit her she danced, sung, and laughed wildly. By the end of the night Fred and George had to borrow Harry's cloak to carry her back to the Hufflepuff dorms trying desperately to hush her laughter as Mrs. Norris followed them the entire way.

The memory brought a smile to George's lips as he slipped his arm from the back of the couch onto her shoulder, pulling her into his chest. Though they were close, they were never incredibly affectionate, but the alcohol in their system drowned out any awkward feelings this embrace may have brought up otherwise. George brought the bottle to his lips and downed the rest of the drink before dropping it on the floor and returning his eyes to Verity, who had apparently been staring at him the entire time.

She started laughing again when he looked down at her.

"What's so funny?"

"I've never had this close of a look at your ear, or lack of an ear I guess." she said with a giggle while poking at the side of his head where most of his ear was missing.

He rolled his eyes and pulled his arm from around her shoulder and leaned away, "Alright-"

"Wait, I'm sorry!" Verity said as she quickly moved her legs around to straddle him, she had her hands on his shoulders and she was doing her best to keep him from leaving.

George knew he could easily push her off his lap if he wanted to, she was light as a feather after all. But instead he let her sit there and stared into her eyes, his head was fuzzy but he wasn't bothered by the position at all.

Verity started laughing again and ran a hand through George's hair, the feeling relaxed him slightly, making him feel even more sleepy than he already was.

"What now?"

"I was just thinking that if you grew your hair out again like in sixth year, you'd be able to cover up your ear." she replied with a mischievous laugh.

"That's it."

Instead of just pushing her off him, George rested his hands on the back of her thighs as he pushed himself up off the couch. Verity instinctively wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck for support as he turned to carry her to his room. George nudged the unlatched door open with his foot, the room was completely dark minus a stream of silver moonlight that was coming through the window.

George carried Verity who was laughing against his shoulder into the room. At the foot of his bed he reached behind his neck to loosen her grip and with one swift motion dropped her onto the bed as a shriek of laughter left her lips. She propped herself up onto her elbows as she laid there looking up at him expectantly while letting her eyes adjust to the darkness of the room.

"Are you taking me to bed, Mr. Weasley?" Verity asked quietly with a smirk.

"You wish."

She laughed and pushed herself up so she was leaning on her hands now, she reached up and grabbed his wrist to gently pull him down to her. She wasn't being forceful and George could easily escape her grasp at any moment, but his better judgement was being hindered by several rounds of firewhisky and a feeling of emptiness in his heart he didn't know how else to fill. He honestly didn't intend for anything to happen between them, but the longer he looked at her the more his conscience was being buried by other thoughts.

He allowed her to pull him down so that he was now hovering over her laying beneath him with a hand on either side of her shoulders. Their faces were inches apart and he felt an unfamiliar magnetic pull to her lips that his brain was arguing with, his eyes were flicking between her eyes and her lips, as if weighing all his options.

"Kiss me." she whispered, he could feel her breath on his skin.

The sound of those words seemed to silence any argument his brain was trying to make as he immediately leaned down and obeyed her command. Her lips were warm and soft, but there wasn't fireworks when their lips met. Instead there was a warmth that rushed through their entire bodies as if they had both just taken another shot of firewhisky the moment they had closed the space between them.

She parted her lips slightly, as if granting him permission to deepen the kiss as he lowered his body onto hers. Her hands wrapped around the back of his neck and her fingers found their way to his hair, tugging lightly. The taste of alochol was still on her tongue and George was sure that she was making him more drunk with each passing second.

As he pulled away to catch his breath he met Verity's eyes and the sight of her seemed to sober him up almost immediately. Quickly, he pushed himself off of her as she watched him with confusion in her eyes. He ran a hand through his hair and started pacing around his room contemplating what could have happened between them if they had kept going.

"What are we doing, Ver?"

She propped herself on her elbows once again and watched him as he walked back and forth in the dark, "It's okay, George."

"It's not okay. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have kissed you."

"But, I asked you to." she whispered, trying to reassure him.

"We've been drinking, we would hate ourselves in the morning if we kept going."

Verity was fully sitting up on the bed now, his words seemed to almost be sobering her up as well. She rested her hands in her lap and looked down at them, twiddling her thumbs. He sat in the chair near the window, deliberately keeping distance between them.

"I'm not coping well, Ver. I don't need to drag you down with me."

She looked up at him, "What are you talking about?"

"I'm a broken man. I can't fix my problems by being reckless."

"You're not broken." she rolled her eyes at him, "Look, I put us in this situation. I'm sorry."

"No you didn't, Ver, I carried you in here, I kissed you I- I just don't want to hurt you. We should just forget it happened."

"Okay" she said quietly, as the embarrassment of the situation began to sink in.

George stood up from the chair, "You can sleep in here, I'll go to the couch. We can talk more in the morning."

-

In the morning George brewed two cups of tea, one for himself and the other for Verity. He waited patiently for her to wake up, if her head was pounding as hard as his was, the last thing he'd want to do is interrupt her sleep. While he was typically a morning person, when he had a hangover he usually liked to have an extra hour or two of sleep, but sleeping on the couch simply wouldn't allow that. It was incredibly uncomfortable and not at all ideal for a 6' 3" man to lay on all night.

A little while later Verity emerged from George's room dressed in the same clothes she was wearing the night before. The sight of her made George feel guilty for a plethora of reasons, but mostly in that moment he felt bad for not offering some of his clothes for her to sleep in, but that was the last thing on his mind the night before.

"Morning, I made tea." he said, gesturing for her to sit across from him.

She sat down silently, avoiding his eyes. He could tell she was feeling embarrassed, and honestly he was feeling that way as well, but he knew they had to talk about it as uncomfortable as it would be. They both silently took sips of their tea for a while as George was trying to figure out exactly how he wanted to broach the conversation.

"Listen, Ver. I'm really sorry about last night. You're the only person that hasn't treated me differently since Fred died and I really don't want to lose that. I shouldn't have kissed you, it's like I was trying to use your affection to make myself feel better. You deserve better than that, better than me."

"How do you feel about me?" she asked bluntly.

"What?" George asked, taken aback by the suddenness of the question.

"Just answer the question."

"Well, I- I mean, you're my friend. Always have been, always will be."

She nodded and set down her tea, meeting his eyes with an intense look, she wanted to make sure he was taking in every word she spoke, "I feel the same way, I don't have any romantic feelings towards you, George. So you're not going to lose my friendship. I regret drunkenly throwing myself at you, I shouldn't have put you in that situation with everything going on. It was my fault even if you tell me it's not my fault a million times."

"Well, I probably will tell you a million times that it wasn't."

"We can have this argument for the rest of our lives, but the truth is it's just a good thing we didn't go further. You were right when you said you couldn't make yourself feel better that way." she said glancing up at him.

"Right." he mumbled, shifting awkwardly in his seat at her comment.

"Look, we can pretend nothing happened if you promise me you won't go out getting drunk and sleeping around every weekend." she said with a smirk.

"Oh Merlin, Ver. Is that what you really think of me now?"

"No of course not, I'm just giving you shit. But next time you're feeling sad, why don't we discuss how you're feeling over a pizza instead of a bottle of wine in the future?"

"Sounds like a plan."