The First Day

Katie perched on a tall stool in the back room of the shop watching George pack fireworks into boxes. He didn't seem to have a rhyme or reason to what went into each box, randomly placing three or four fireworks into each box. 'Going for the element of surprise, are you? The mystery box of fireworks? Do you get dragons, Catherine wheels, or Quidditch equipment?'

George's head snapped up. 'Huh?'

Katie gestured toward the towering stack of boxes next to George. 'You haven't labeled the boxes at all since you started. And normally, each of the small boxes has the same proportion of fireworks. Like they all have two animal-themed fireworks and two Quidditch ones. Or something of the sort. It's like you're not even thinking.'

George blinked and gazed in dismay at the boxes. 'Bloody hell,' he sighed. 'That's two hours of wasted work...'

'You could have them in a bin,' Katie suggested. 'Sell them for five Sickles. Make the mystery part of the selling point. The allure of the unknown,' she added in enticing voice.

'Might work,' George said thoughtfully. 'It'd save us the trouble of having to go back and repackage it all.' He continued to direct random fireworks into the boxes, with slightly more purpose than he'd shown before.

'Mum wants to have you over for tea.'

'Really?' George glanced at Katie. 'Why?'

'She's in the market for a load of trick wands and dribbling teacups,' Katie smirked.

'I'll make sure to bring a selection,' George retorted.

'Shall I tell her to expect both of us, then?' Katie asked. 'Round five on Saturday?'

'Sure,' George said off-handedly, then suddenly his wand hand jerked, sending several fireworks flying across the back room. One of them exploded in an impressive shower of bronze and blue sparks. 'I guess that was one of the Hogwarts fireworks,' he mused, then ignored the eagle soaring around the room. 'Oh... wait... I can't do it at five on Saturday.'

'Why not?'

'Easter hols start Saturday,' George explained. 'Shop'll be open late for Hogwarts students. I can come later, after we've closed.'

Katie shook her head. 'Mum and Dad have to start getting Timothy ready for bed early. He fights it and if they don't start the process of persuading him to have a bath and the like early, they're all up until midnight. He doesn't take well to having his routine disrupted...' she said apologetically.

George packed a few more boxes, then said at length, 'I'll talk to Ron.'

Katie's shoulders jerked. 'It's fine.'

'I'll talk to Ron,' George repeated. 'He's quite able to run things by himself, and we have David and Sasha. And Harry can help.'

'Don't worry about it,' Katie muttered. 'It doesn't matter.'

George's hand closed around Katie's wrist. 'It does,' he insisted. 'It does to you.' He closed a box with a flick of his wand. 'Tea's at five, yeah?' Katie nodded mutely. 'Right. I'll meet you at your flat at four-thirty. I promise I'll even wear something that's clean, pressed, and free of stains.'

'You don't have to -' Katie began.

'I know I don't,' George interrupted. 'I want to.' Katie's stomach rumbled loudly in response, making her blush, and George chuckled. 'All right. I can finish this tomorrow. 'What time is it, anyway?'

'Almost nine,' Katie said sheepishly.

'Why didn't you say something?' George chided, pulling his robes off and hanging them on their hook.

'You were busy,' Katie slid off the stool. 'Been busy quite a lot lately,' she added.

'Yeah.' George stole a look at the calendar on the wall, then quickly shifted his attention to straightening the already perfectly stacked pile of boxes.

Katie followed his look. April first was a week away. She supposed George burying himself in work was marginally better than shutting himself away, but he was still hiding for all intents and purposes. 'Have you had dinner yet?' George's stomach gave an answering rumble of its own. 'I'm going to take that as a no...'

'Erm, yeah... I sort of forgot to eat...'

'Would you like to come over and have a bite?'

George waved his wand around the back room and the lights dimmed and then slowly went out. 'Yeah.'

'And stay the night?'

George's head tilted to one side. 'Are you trying to distract me with food and sex in the hopes I'll forget my birthday's next week?'

'Is it working?' Katie grinned a little.

George let a small smile drift over his face. 'I'll let you know.'

'Fair enough.' Katie opened the back door and slipped outside. George followed her, tapping the doorknob with his wand to lock the door, and slid his hand around Katie's, walking down the dark, quiet street to her building.

George tilted his head back a little, looking at the number of windows, limned with light. The quiet wasn't the same as it had been a year go. That had been a suffocating silence, choked with fear and terror. Even when he and Fred had opened the shop, and moved into the flat over it, the mood on Diagon Alley had been apprehensive and more than a little frightened. It was, to George, a little unsettling, after living with the fear for so many months. He stopped and tugged at Katie's hand, turning her around. She looked up at him, an inquiring expression on her face. George brushed the hair from her eyes and cupped her face with his free hand, and bent to kiss her. He wound his arms around Katie, inhaling the honeysuckle scent of her body.

No, he couldn't forget. But he could live in this moment.

*****

George traced the back of Katie's left hand, curled into a fist on her pillow. She hardly ever straightened her fingers if she didn't have to, and generally avoided using her left hand at all. He turned her hand over, and ran his thumb up her palm, attempting to unfurl her fingers. Katie grimaced and clenched her hand into a tighter fist, trying to pull her hand away. George frowned and sat up, the sheet falling around his waist. He renewed his attempts to uncurl her hand, and Katie, just as firmly rebuffed his efforts in a silent battle of wills. 'Why?' he said softly.

Katie's mouth crimped and she jerked her hand from his. 'Because it's the hand that touched that foul necklace Malfoy Imperiused Madam Rosmerta into performing an Imperius curse on me to take it back to Hogwarts,' she hissed.

'Wait, what?' George asked in confusion. He hadn't paid much attention to the accounts of the Death Eater trials in the newspaper.

Katie sighed explosively and wrapped the sheet firmly around her body. 'Malfoy put an Imperius on Rosmerta to make her perform an Imperius on someone else. And then that someone else would take a cursed necklace to the school and give it to Dumbledore. Who would have been too smart to open the damn thing in the first place.' She looked down at her left hand. 'She Imperiused me. I went to the ladies' at the Three Broomsticks, and then I didn't remember anything until I woke up at St. Mungo's six months later.' She uncurled her fingers, palm down over her knee. 'It looks awful,' she murmured.

George suddenly swept his hair away from the right side of his head. He never exposed that side of his head, if he didn't have to. He turned his head, displaying it to Katie. 'That didn't exactly add any points in the looks department,' he said dispassionately. 'It took weeks to get over not having an ear. It wasn't like I was going to get it pierced like Bill, mind, but I didn't have an ear. I grew my hair out to cover it. Those scars? Yeah, I asked a Healer, and he said he didn't know if they'd ever heal properly or even fade because it was Dark magic.' He let his hair fall back. 'It's naught to be ashamed of, Katie,' he told her, stroking the back of her left hand.

'It is,' she said angrily. 'It is, George. It was a bloody Imperius! My God, George, that Death Eater who impersonated Mad-Eye my fifth year taught us how to fight one off, and how to recognize it. And I couldn't fight it,' she sniffed. 'I couldn't fight it...' Tears began to fall down her cheeks.

'You think that makes you weak or something?' George asked, leaning over the side of the bed, scrabbling for his shirt. He used the hem to wipe Katie's cheeks.

'It does make me weak,' she raged.

'Katie... Lots of wizards and witches were under an Imperius curse. Fully trained ones, no less. Look at Pius Thicknesse. Merlin's pants, Katie, the man was the bloody Head of MLE and couldn't fight off an Imperius. And you weren't even out of school...'

'Harry could,' Katie said mulishly. 'He could do it his fourth year.'

George shifted to sit next to Katie and drew her closer to him, thumbing off the intermittent tears that streaked down her face. 'Yeah, well, Harry can do lots of things some of us only wish we could do.' He lifted Katie's left wrist to his mouth and pressed a lingering kiss to the inside, just over her pulse, feeling it bump steadily against his lips. She had automatically curved her fingers over the palm. 'And he's absolute rubbish at other things. Same with everyone.' He cradled her hand between his. 'Please?' he murmured.

Biting her lip so hard, George fancied she was about to draw blood, Katie slowly straightened her fingers. George gently ran his hand over her open palm, and looked down. The very tip of her finger was nearly purple. He touched it with a questioning fingertip. 'It's where I touched the necklace,' Katie said painfully. George nodded and continued to examine her hand. Livid magenta lines emanated from the tip, snaking down her finger, twisting and writing around each other. They faded as they traveled down her finger, and halfway down her palm, they disappeared. She was right, George reasoned. It was awful to see. But not because of the aesthetic qualities of the injury. It didn't turn him off or disgust him physically. It gave him a pang to remember those long months she lay in St. Mungo's unconscious, unsure if she would ever wake up. Without pausing to mull his actions, George bent his head over Katie's hand and his tongue flicked over her ring finger. 'George...' she breathed in protest.

'Katie...'

'Don't... It's...'

'Shhhh.' George continued his ministrations to Katie's hand, feeling his body stir as she ran her fingers through his hair and over his back. He lifted his head and stared at her. 'You ought to be proud of yourself,' he said softly. 'You survived. It's a badge of honor.' He closed the distance between them and kissed her, pushing her back against the pillows.

Katie broke the kiss, tears still trembling on her lashes. 'Are you trying to distract me with sex?' she asked.

'Is it working?' George asked huskily.

Katie brushed a kiss over his shoulder. 'I'll let you know.'

*****

George ruefully looked down at his shirt. It was covered in cat fur, courtesy of the old cat that was draped over his lap. 'Maisey likes you,' Timothy crowed in delight, stroking the cat's ginger fur.

'Maisey likes anybody that will pet her,' Katie's mother Belinda said, a cup of tea cradled in her hands. 'She showed up on our doorstep when Timmy was a baby,' she told George. 'Just a mere scrap of a kitten herself.'

'They grew up together,' Katie's father Peter added. 'And Maisey preferred Timothy to the rest of us.' As if to prove his point, Maisey yawned, stretched, and slid from George's lap to Timothy's nuzzling the boy's nose with her own, noisily purring like the old Anglia Arthur had once owned.

Timothy sprang up, Maisey clutched in his arms. To George's surprise, she didn't attempt to bite or scratch Timothy. 'Come see Maisey's room!' Timothy demanded to George.

'Maisey has her own room?' George asked Timothy.

'Uh-huh!' Timothy scampered down the corridor, while George managed to haul himself to his feet, ineffectively brushing at the tufts of orange fur on his shirt. Giving it up as a bad job, he followed Timothy to what was obviously his bedroom. On one side of the room, Timothy had blocked off an area with wooden building blocks and supplied it with pillows and a fuzzy blanket. 'That's where Maisey sleeps!' Timothy said proudly. 'But sometimes, she sleeps on my bed,' he whispered loudly to George.

George, for his part, found himself contemplating what would happen to Timothy while he nattered on about this and that. He had magic, but was unable to manipulate or control it. It made George wonder if Timothy would have a lifespan similar to those of witches and wizards, or even Squibs, who lived a bit longer than Muggles. And if he did outlive his parents, what would happen to him?

In a few moments, Peter's head appeared through the door. 'All right, Timmy. It's time to put your things away.'

George bit his lip at Timothy's crestfallen expression. 'I'll help,' he volunteered. 'If you tell me where things go.'

'Oh, you don't have...' Peter began, but George interrupted.

'I don't mind. And if it helps...' He shrugged, and scooped up a pile of Muggle picture book.

Peter stood in the doorway, studying George, who patiently placed each book just so, according to Timothy's instructions. 'Thank you,' he said quietly. George nodded in acknowledgement, never taking his attention away from Timothy. 'All right, Timmy,' Peter said. 'Let's see if you can get everything put away before the sand runs out.' He flicked his wand at an hourglass set into the wall. As it swung over, tinkling music began to play, and Timothy stared at it for a moment, before he set Maisey in her "room" and began to methodically gather his toys with lightening speed.

'What happens if he beats the hourglass?' George asked.

'Extra story at bedtime,' Peter replied. 'Sometimes he makes it, sometimes not.'

George grinned. 'I hope you've got one picked out,' he said, then rolled up his sleeves and pulled out his wand, and proceeded to Banish various toys and games to their cupboards, while Timothy laughed with glee.

In the sitting room, Belinda fixed Katie with a beady eye. 'What?' Katie asked.

'I take it things are going well,' Belinda said.

'Yeah...' Katie walked into the kitchen and began to do the washing up. 'They're fine,' she added cautiously.

Belinda tilted Katie's face toward the light. 'You look tired,' she said accusingly.

'I am tired. It's been a long week at work.'

'You didn't eat much,' Belinda noted.

'Mum,' Katie exclaimed, scandalized. 'I'm not pregnant,' she whispered.

'Why is that the first thing that jumps into your head?'

Katie slid a pile of dishes into the sink. 'Because you're you, Mum. Your biggest worry when I was at school wasn't that I'd get hexed into oblivion, but that I'd end up pregnant. I'm not pregnant,' she repeated.

Are you sure?'

'Yes, Mum, I'm sure.' Katie directed a plate to a cupboard with her wand. 'Reasonably sure...'

'Katherine...' Belinda said warningly.

'Would it be such a bad thing if I were?' Katie asked in a low voice.

George stopped just outside the door. -If she were what?

'Are either of you ready for it?' Belinda shot back.

'Is anyone?' Katie countered. 'All my life, I've heard you dealing with women and their families. And every time one of them gets pregnant for the first time, chances are one of them will say, "I'm not ready for this," and you always tell them nobody ever is ready for it.'

'How many hours do you work a day?' Belinda asked.

'How is this relevant?' Katie asked, sending another plate to the cupboard.

'Just answer me.'

'Nine or ten. Sometimes twelve. And George works just as much, nearly every day except Sundays, and even then he puts in several hours...'

'Can either of you not work that much?' Belinda challenged.

'I don't...' Katie's voice faltered. 'I don't know...'

'Don't you think you ought to find out? Before you think about adding children? Or even if he wants them. Or if he wants to be with you for longer than a few months.'

'Mum...' Katie directed her wand at the sink and a glass landed in it with a splash, sending water cascading over the lip of the sink in her exasperation. 'We've only just started dating...'

'You can't tell me you don't want...' Belinda sighed and tucked a lock of hair behind Katie's ear. 'I know how the two of you feel about each other. But... Don't rush into anything.'

Katie slumped against the counter. 'I don't think that's going to be a problem,' she admitted. 'I ought to go collect George before it gets too late, and Timothy talks him into sleeping over.'

George jumped and strolled nonchalantly into the kitchen. 'Timothy's getting into the bath,' he told Belinda. 'I think that might be a good time to slip out?' he suggested to Katie.

'I think you're right,' Katie said quickly, dying to end the uncomfortable conversation with her mother. She gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek. 'Tell Dad I said good night.'

'Thank you, Mrs.... Erm... Belinda,' George stammered. 'I had a nice evening.'

'I do apologize for the cat fur...' Belinda murmured, eyeing the still-liberal smudges of orange on George's shirt.

'No worries,' George said.

'Do come back with Katie any time,' Belinda said brightly.

'I will.' George took Katie's proffered hand and they left the house. 'Do you want to go back to London straightaway?'

'Don't have to,' Katie said.

'Mind if we walk a bit?'

Katie shook her head. 'No...'

George slid his arm around Katie's waist, matching his stride to hers. 'Can I ask you something?'

Katie's mouth went dry. Oh, damn... He heard! 'Sure.'

'What happens to Timothy if your parents can't take care of him anymore?'

'I'm not sure. He might come live with me. Actually, I think he might have to. It's not as if he's spell-damaged and can live in St. Mungo's...' She cut a sideways look at George. 'Would that be a problem if... you know... we were...?'

George looked down at the top of Katie's head. 'No... Family always comes first...'

*****

George heard the sounds of Ron, Harry, and Ginny dressing for the day.

April first.

The first birthday without Fred.

George curled on his side, and faced the wall. Amazing after so many first days without Fred, it still stung as much as it did. When Harry announced he was moving into his new flat on April first, George didn't blame him. He wouldn't have wanted to be in the house, either, had he been either Ron, Harry, or Ginny. The house that plunged back into mourning for a day. Molly's voice drifted up the stairs, and George winced at the note of forced cheer in it. His eyes closed and he sought escape in sleep.

*****

Katie tiptoed into George's bedroom, and closed the door behind her, locking it. When Katie showed up in the kitchen door of the Burrow, Molly had merely pointed upstairs and Katie nodded in mute understanding. Katie stood at the foot of the bed, and toed her shoes off, then doffed her trousers and lifted the edge of the quilt, sliding in behind George, who awoke with a startled snort. 'Wha...?' He blinked blearily at Katie. 'Wha' are you doin' here?'

Katie's left hand stole to the right side of George's head and she brushed his hair back, her fingers tracing the scars around the small dark hole. 'Because you can't always see some scars,' she told him.

George snorted self-deprecatingly. 'I'm a coward,' he scoffed. 'It's our birthday, and I can't even be bothered to face anyone...'

'I don't see it that way,' Katie murmured, her body curving into George's.

'Glad someone doesn't,' George muttered. 'When I told Ron I wasn't planning to open the shop today, he didn't seem surprised at all. He just muttered something under his breath that sounded like, "Figures."' George was silent for a long moment. 'Do you think one day, it won't feel like this...? Like I'm missing a part of myself?'

Katie's head rested on his shoulder. 'I don't know.'

'How long can you stay?' George asked in a small voice.

'As long as you need me to,' Katie murmured, lacing her fingers through his.

George felt a little of the tension that had built up inside him dissipate a little. He knew he wasn't alone, not in the classic sense of the word. He had Molly and Arthur, and the rest of the family. But that was family. It wasn't exactly voluntary. Arthur had told both he and Fred that when they complained about Percy. You can't choose your family. You have to like them. And you have to put up with all the things they do that might seem silly to you. Because they're your family. Katie had chosen to stay with him.

It helped. Just a little, but it was like seeing a single ray of sunshine break through the clouds.