Playing With Firewhiskey

George was in the kitchen, pouring steaming coffee into a mug when Kaitlyn shyly made her way out of the bedroom. George looked up from what he was doing and gave her a smile, setting the cup of coffee down at the table, motioning for Kaitlyn to sit down.

"I made some coffee," he offered to her, reaching over to grab the potion he always kept on hand for mornings like this. He was certain Kaitlyn was going to need it.

Kaitlyn slowly sat down at the table, her cheeks bright red from the flush that had been creeping up her neck and across her face the moment she'd realized George knew of her presence in the room.

George poured a bit of the potion into the coffee and stirred it a bit, pushing the mug towards the brunette, "This stuff works wonders. You'll feel a lot better after you drink it." He assured her.

"I don't think anything could possibly make me feel better," Kaitlyn finally spoke, her voice soft but groggy from sleep.

George merely smiled at her, patting her shoulder before getting up to fix himself a cup of coffee as well. He could tell that Kaitlyn was embarrassed, and in an effort to keep her embarrassment to a minimum, George merely sat down at the table and read the post the store's owl had delivered.

"Sorry about your sink." Kaitlyn finally said softly, looking at George over her cup of coffee, "And...sorry for being so drunk last night."

George looked up from a letter that he was writing and gave Kaitlyn a reassuring smile, "Don't worry about it. It was practically my fault anyway for suggesting Firewhiskey in the first place."

Kaitlyn nodded a little bit, biting down on her lip. "Also...er...thanks. For taking me home, and putting me to bed...and for letting me sleep here."

"Again, don't worry about it." George sent the letter off with the owl and sat back in his chair, adding on as an afterthought, "By the way, you're not going to work today."

Kaitlyn looked taken aback, "I'm not?"

"I sent an owl in saying you were sick. I didn't think you were going to wake up this early." George said with a shrug, "I also sent an owl to your brother to let him know that you're here."

And that absolutely nothing happened between us, George added in his head. George had felt it was necessary to add that point into his letter to Kyle. From what he had seen, and from what he knew being an older brother himself, George knew that Kaitlyn was no joking matter to the Quidditch player.

Kaitlyn groaned, burying her head in her arms, "Kyle's going to kill me."

And George, Kaitlyn thought, he's going to murder us both! Kaitlyn just couldn't imagine her older brother being okay with her spending the night at a boy's flat, even if he was as harmless as George Weasley.

"I wouldn't worry about it," George chuckled, "You worry too much, did anyone ever tell you that?" he teased, picking up a piece of parchment from the stack of letters, sliding it over to Kaitlyn. "Does that sound like he's going to kill you?"

Kaitlyn looked down at the letter in front of her, reading it over with surprise. Kyle thanked George for taking care of her, apologizing for not doing it himself, and offered to bring lunch to the shop later in the day. The letter ended, predictably, with a teasing threat of Avada Kedavra if he so much touched a hair on Kaitlyn's body.

"Weird." Kaitlyn commented, raising an eyebrow and sliding the letter back to its owner. "Thanks."

"Curious, isn't it? Bet you five Galleons something good happened with Oliver last night."

Kaitlyn's lips quirked up into a smile, "It would be about time. I'll just have to get all the juicy details from him later."

The pair sat in companionable silence as George continued to read through the letters for the shop, and Kaitlyn looked through the copy of the Daily Prophet sitting on the table. After a few moments, Kaitlyn looked over the pages of the paper to watch George for a few moments. Last night had been an eye opener for the brunette. For the first time in a long time, she was the one being taken care of. She'd lost count of the amount of times she had to put a belligerently inebriated Zacharias to bed, assaulted with verbal insults and sometimes a little of Zach's vomit as well. Then she would stay up cleaning his messes and making sure he had water and potion for the next morning before she too could fall asleep. Whenever her boyfriend had enough drinks to be sufficiently drunk, it was bad news.

As though he read her thoughts, an owl dropped a letter through the kitchen window, pecking at the glass to be let in. George looked up from what he was doing and raised an eyebrow before going over to the window to let the owl in. He didn't recognize this particular owl, but that wasn't strange since several strangers sent letters about the shop. But when he picked the letter up, he realized it was addressed to Kaitlyn.

"It's for you." He said, sitting down at the table once more, and handing it over to Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn took it and looked down at the envelope and her eyes widened when she recognized Zacharias' handwriting. She stole a glance over at George, who had gone back to replying to the last of the letters he'd received, before opening the envelope slowly.

Kaitlyn,

Where the bloody hell are you? I hope you are alright, wherever you are. I showed up at your flat this morning and no one was home. It was much too early for you to be going to work.

I was at my mum's last night. You know how she can be. She insisted I stay for dinner, and then time got away from me, and then when I got home to get ready to come meet with you, Justin and Ernie were hosting some new birds at the flat and they needed me to converse with the third one so they could pick up the other two.

Don't be angry. She was terribly annoying, and I tried to get away to send you an owl to let you know what was happening, but she just followed me everywhere.

I hope you didn't do anything stupid, Kait. Send Edgar back with your reply.

Yours,

Zach

Kaitlyn heaved a sigh, forgetting where she was, and put the letter down. She didn't feel even a little bit better after reading the letter. In fact, she was pretty sure that she felt about a hundred times worse. It didn't explicitly say so in his words, but she knew that Zach was angry. She wasn't even sure why he was angry this time; he was the one who ditched her! What right did he have? And for what? So his friends could get laid?

"Everything okay?" George asked, having finished with his letters and was now going about getting ready to open up the shop. He had subtlety watched Kaitlyn's eyes scan the words of the letter, and saw how her face fell with each and every sentence she read. George had little to no doubt about who had sent the letter. From the short time he'd known Kaitlyn, he'd figured out that there was only one person who could change her emotions so drastically in such little time: Zacharias.

"Huh?" Kaitlyn looked up from the piece of parchment with a start, "Oh. Yeah. It's just...well, nothing really. Do you have a quill I could borrow?"

Kaitlyn didn't feel like getting another lecture from yet another person about how Zacharias wasn't being fair, or how she was letting him take advantage of her. Somewhere inside of her, she knew all of this was true. But she had never been able to let him go. Lately, though, Kaitlyn had felt more upset and resentful each and every time Zach tried to turn the tables on her. She knew she never did anything wrong, so why did he make her feel like everything was all her fault?

"Here you go."

George's voice broke Kaitlyn from her thoughts as he handed her a quill.

"Oh. Thanks."

"No problem," George replied, shrugging a jacket on, "I'll just be downstairs in the shop opening up. You can stay up here for as long as you like." He smiled at her and quickly headed downstairs, leaving Kaitlyn to her thoughts.

He knew, just by Kaitlyn's hesitance to tell him what was wrong, that his suspicious were correct. George also knew from what Oliver and Kyle told him that Kaitlyn got extremely defensive on all matters regarding her boyfriend. Being that he didn't know her all too well, George decided to butt out, even though he had a few choice words to say on the matter.

It's none of your business. He scolded himself as he moved a bunch of products from the storage room into the main room to be shelved.

But you let her stay in your flat last night. You could've just brought her back to hers. You fancy her. Fred's voice rang through his head in the mocking tone they'd always used on each other when matters of the female sex were in question.

Oh shut up. She would never leave Zacharias for me. She's completely devoted to him.

Not if she keeps seeing how incredibly wonderful you are in comparison.

George was relieved when someone walked into the store. He had a feeling he was going to need plenty of distractions to keep him from hearing his dead twin's voice in his head. It didn't occur to him that he should be a bit more concerned that he was hearing Fred's voice at all - in his head of all places. In a way, it was a comforting reminder that things might end up okay after all. George quickly shelved the rest of the products on the floor and headed to the front of the store.

"Oliver Wood," he greeted, "To what do I owe this humbling visit? Say, do you think I could get your autograph and use it for a future product? I was thinking of a great prank - Disappearing Autographs! Of course I'd have to think of a better name..."

Oliver raised an eyebrow at George and just shook his head, "I don't know if you'll sell any of those with my autograph, mate. Maybe Krum's though." He leaned against the counter and continued, "I'm just dropping by on my way to visit my mum. How was the rest of your night last night? I kind of lost track of what was going on with you halfway through the night."

"Kind of?" George teased, doing a quick count in the register before looking up at his friend, "You were highly distracted by a certain Chaser if I remember correctly. I think the more important question here, Ollie, is how the rest of your night went."

Oliver flushed bright red, which George took great pleasure in seeing. He didn't think he'd been able to make Oliver this uncomfortably embarrassed since their days at Hogwarts at Quidditch practice. He and Fred used to cause Oliver all kinds of trouble with the girls on the team. This was, of course, before he came out of the closet. Afterwards, the twins caused Oliver plenty of trouble with literally every member of the team. Just the memory of this brought a smile to George's face, and if George wasn't enjoying the stuttering Oliver had been reduced to, he would have realized that for the first time, smiling about Fred's memory didn't feel so wrong.

"It went fine." Oliver finally managed to say, shoving George's shoulder across the counter.

"Fine? How fine exactly did it go? Come on, Wood. I don't hear gossip like this anymore - everyone's gotten so bloody boring with their stable relationships and whatnot." George said overdramatically with a roll of his eyes. He leaned on the counter with his chin in his hands, innocently batting his eyelashes at Oliver, "So. You and Kyle Thompson, huh?"

Oliver seemed to battle with his emotions for a few seconds, as though debating with himself what he should say. Finally, he gave in.

"Oh, alright. I don't know what's going on with us. I think I've fancied him since the day he stopped the Chudley Canons from scoring that goal on us a few months ago."

George couldn't stop the snort of laughter that escaped when he heard this - of course it was Quidditch related.

"Shut up." Oliver chided, turning bright red again. "Anyway, he's been hung up over his ex for...well, forever, really. And I just didn't think I had much of a chance. I mean, his ex was pretty horrible. He wouldn't come out of the closet because of his family, and ended up being a dark wizard anyway. He turned most of the Slytherin house against Kyle. It was a rough seventh year for the bloke."

George raised an eyebrow, "That sounds like something Malfoy would do."

"Well..." Oliver looked slightly uncomfortable at that, clearing his throat before finally saying, "funny thing is, it was Malfoy. But," Oliver continued before George could get over the shock and say something, "he does realize that he's much better off without him."

"Everyone in the world is better off without the Malfoys. Unfortunately, they seem to still be around." George said with a shake of his head, "But I mean, it's not Kyle's fault that he couldn't see that Malfoy's a git. We all have momentary lapses in judgment."

Oliver laughed and continued with his story, "Yeah. Well, anyway, we talked a little more about how he thinks he's ready to move on from him finally. He was pretty sloshed, mate. But he did say in the morning that he still meant it."

"Wait," George interrupted, "in the morning?"

"Oh come off it," Oliver retorted with another blush, "Nothing happened. Well...we may have snogged for a bit."

"I KNEW IT!" George said triumphantly, throwing his hands in the air with a huge grin on his face. He slowly walked around the counter to get closer to Oliver, who had let out a groan. "Oliver and Kyle," George sing-songed.

But before he could get any further, Oliver cuffed him, his face as red as George's hair, and muttered, "Shut up, Weasley."

"Aw Ollie..." George cooed, "Don't be embarrassed - this is great, really. You've found someone who might even be more obsessed with Quidditch than you, and I never thought that would be possible. And now that you're sufficiently distracting him, Kyle might not even notice..." George trailed off, realizing that his mouth had spoken before he could think - again. He really had to stop doing that.

Now, it was Oliver's turn to round on George, "Notice what?" he said, face returning to its normal colour.

"Nothing." George said quickly.

"Nope. I know what it is." Oliver said with a big smirk on his face. George wished so badly he could take back what he'd allowed to slip. Oliver would have none of it though. Instead, he continued on, "You, George Weasley, fancy a certain former Hufflepuff who already has a boyfriend!"

"Who is a bloody awful git!" George interjected, without meaning to. He immediately slapped his hand over his mouth and let out a muffled groan before turning to Oliver with a frown, "Did you slip Veritiserum to me?"

Oliver only chuckled with an amused shake of his head.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure." Oliver said, still laughing, "But I do agree with you. He is pretty awful."

"He owl'd her this morning." George said grumpily. "And before you say it, nothing happened last night. She was absolutely smashed and so I let her sleep in my room. I was on the couch." He said, giving Oliver a look, glancing over his shoulder towards the stairs to make sure that Kaitlyn wasn't coming down, "You know I wouldn't cross Kyle like that. The bloke's bloody terrifying. Besides, she's far too dedicated to Zacharias. Anyway, she woke up this morning, embarrassed, and then received an owl from the arse."

"Well you know what you have to do, don't you?" Oliver said very seriously.

"Oliver, I can't go around trying to win over a girl who doesn't fancy me back." George rolled his eyes, heading back to the counter to sit down on the stool he had by the register.

"Yes you can. You need to show her that you're so much better than that bloke she's with who breaks appointments with her, constantly makes her cry and drive her brother nuts. C'mon Weasley, you had no problem doing that in school."

George vaguely thought that Oliver said exactly what Fred would've said to him, had he been alive. He heaved a sigh, though and shook his head, glancing cautiously towards the stairs again. "I just can't. This is different."

"Why? Because you actually fancy her?" At George's hesitation to answer, Oliver continued, "Look, I promise you that Kyle would so much rather have you around than Zacharias. That's hurdle number one, isn't it?"

George reluctantly nodded, "But it's not even the biggest hurdle. Let me remind you: She doesn't even fancy me back."

"You don't know that. You just think that because Zacharias is in the picture. But honestly, how did she react to his letter? Was she happy, excited even?"

"Well...not exactly." George admitted, shrugging, "First, she seemed worried, but then she read it and she just seemed upset. I didn't ask, kind of just left her to write back and told her she was welcome to stay as long as she wanted to."

"Just keep being your charming self, Weasley. I think you're a lot closer than you think." Oliver said with a reassuring pat on the shoulder. He straightened up and looked around the shop before turning back to George, "Well, I'll see you later. I really should go otherwise my mum will send a Howler over here." He rolled his eyes, and sent a wave over his shoulder at George before he left the store.

George watched Oliver's retreating back, shaking his head slightly before turning back to his list of things to do. But hard as he tried, he couldn't focus on it. Could Oliver actually have a good point? It was reassuring to know that Oliver didn't think Kyle would be all too opposed if George were to go out with Kaitlyn; however, it seemed to be the least of his problems. Of course the girl he, admittedly, fancied - maybe a little - was already committed to another bloke. Even if he did happen to be the worst.

Shaking his head, George tried to focus on his work. But he got distracted, yet again, by a piece of parchment sticking out of one of the drawers behind the counter. Absentmindedly, George picked it out of the drawer and unfolded it. Almost immediately, he wished he hadn't done so. It was a list of potential products that they could start developing, clearly written in Fred's handwriting. George knew this list well. In fact, he had been avoiding it for some time now, trying to think of new products on his own. He was lucky that witches and wizards everywhere were not yet tired of the products WWW already had because George hadn't come up with a single new product that he thought marketable in the past year. It was hard to without someone to bounce ideas off of. That's how he and Fred used to come up with such brilliant ideas.

George sighed, pushing the parchment away from him and rubbed his eyes tiredly. How was it only half past ten in the morning? This was going to be a long day.

"George?" a soft, timid voice shook George from his staring contest with the parchment.

The red head looked up to see Kaitlyn standing there, her coat in one hand and a sheepish smile on her face, "Sorry, were you in the middle of something?"

George shook his head and managed a smile for her, "No, it's alright. Everything okay?"

Kaitlyn just nodded, "I was just cleaning up your room and putting away the dishes. It was the least I could do to thank you for...everything last night."

"Oh." George said in surprise, "You didn't have to do that."

"I wanted to." Kaitlyn assured him, leaning on the counter, "Are those ideas for new products?" she asked, pointing at the piece of parchment.

George was visibly uncomfortable and Kaitlyn picked up on this, immediately interjecting, "Oh. I'm sorry. If it's personal...I mean I really shouldn't have pried..." She blushed slightly as she said this, biting down on her lip and stepping back from the counter a bit, as though George needed space.

"No...it's...it's okay. It was just...these were all Fred's ideas. We had a brainstorm before he...well..." George finally said, his voice wavering the slightest bit.

Kaitlyn nodded slowly in understanding, "Right." She finished for him so he didn't have to say the dreaded word. Kaitlyn couldn't help but feel incredibly sorry for the man in front of her. She couldn't imagine losing Kyle, and he wasn't even her twin. Kaitlyn took a tentative step forward and reached out to put a hand on George's shoulder, "You know," she said gently, "it would be pretty cool if his ideas came to life. You could have a whole...section of the store or something, in his memory."

"I..." George suddenly found it very hard to speak, but when Kaitlyn squeezed his shoulder gently, she took in a deep breath and forged on anyway, "I don't know if I could handle that. Not yet."

He expected Kaitlyn to tell him that he had to move on sometime, that Fred wouldn't want him to be like this, that now was as good a time as any. But instead, she only nodded, leaning against the counter, and said, "Well, just a thought for another time, perhaps."

Surprised, George looked up to meet Kaitlyn's eyes. She smiled at him and seemed to contemplate her next words carefully before she said softly, "When my parents were admitted to St. Mungo's, I thought it was my duty to visit them everyday. They were hexed and driven to insanity that same night." Kaitlyn looked away from George and focused on the parchment with Fred's ideas instead. She took in a breath as she continued, "They...they're not dead, and I am grateful for that everyday. But they have no idea who I am, or who Kyle is. They can't speak. They just lie there; sometimes they smile. It's when they smile that I have the most hope. But I...I can't visit them everyday anymore. I can't handle that either. Not yet."

Kaitlyn offered George a smile and leaned down to give him a hug. It was a bold move, for Kaitlyn, but she felt compelled to. He looked so sad, and she just wanted him to see that it was okay that he wasn't over Fred being gone.

"I'm sorry." George said, his voice barely above a whisper. He pulled back from Kaitlyn and looked at her, biting down on his lip.

"Me too." Kaitlyn said with a sad smile, "I'm not ready to see my parents all the time. It makes me feel guilty. But I'm just not ready. You aren't ready to publicly memorialize Fred. That's okay. You have to let yourself believe that it's okay."

George merely nodded, taking in Kaitlyn's words and realizing that she was probably right. He was sure that several other people had tried to tell him this before, but something about the way she'd said it made much more sense to George than it ever had.

Kaitlyn gave George one last squeeze to the shoulder before stepping back and sliding her coat on, "I should get going. I've got to get things straightened out with Zach..."

"Oh. Er...alright. But Kaitlyn?"

The brunette braced herself for the lecture she was sure was coming, "Yes?"

"Just be careful." George finally said, after a mental battle with himself on how to say it without coming off as overbearing or annoying.

Kaitlyn flushed slightly and gave George a smile, "I will. See you later."

And with that, Kaitlyn Apparated away, leaving George feeling strangely content with how his day was panning out.