Just Like Magic (George Weasley)

Twenty-Five.

For Christmas, we went home. Joshua didn't sit with us on the way home this time. He's finally making friends his own age. To be honest I loved that he and George are so close, but at the end of the day George is 18 and Joshua is 12, so I knew eventually that he'd make friends his own age soon enough.
   
Christmas was as it is every year. Very quiet. Joshua was very happy this year. This was what I had been waiting for since he got his Hogwarts Letter. He was coming into his own finally. He wasn't as quiet as he used to be, and I loved to watch him blossom.
   
On Boxing Day, the twins came back to the shop and I went to visit them. At lunch I told them how proud I was of Joshua for coming out of shell. They then mentioned to me then that they're kind of worried about Tonks for the opposite reason. Sometimes they use the shop as a place for Order meetings since they're no longer using Number 12 Grimmuald place as headquarters after my dad died, and they agreed that she hasn't been herself lately.
   
The next time I visited the twins, I took Joshua with me because I knew he wanted to see them. Once again George let him run around the store and take whatever he wanted. He loved to make my brother happy, and he sure knew how.
   
"How was your Christmas, darling?" I asked him, once Joshua had taken off around the store.
   
"It was great," he says, nodding, "Mum missed you. Next year we should split our time together and see each other’s families."
   
The fact that he thought that far into our future made me smile. I know a year's time isn't that long, but for us it is. We're still very young. So, a year might as well be a lifetime. It makes me happy he still thought of us together then.
   
"That sounds great, actually," I say, smiling and nodding my head.
   
George smiles too, "I've been doing some thinking, too, darling. You're almost done with school, and in June, when you finish I'd like you to move in here with Fred and I. I already talked to Fred about it, and he's totally cool with it. In fact he wants it to happen as much as I do. You don't have to give me an answer now, but just think about it."
   
"Yes," I say without thinking about it. "I will so move in with you."
   
"Oh thank Merlin!" He exclaims, a big smile on his face and he pulls me into a big hug. "I'm so happy. You make me so happy."
   
"You make me happy, too, baby," I tell him as we hug.
   
George takes me face into his hands then, holding it in place, and he places a kiss onto my lips again. Then it turns into a round of quick, fast kisses all over my face. It makes me giggle.
   
It's then that Fred exits the back room and sees us. He pulled the same line he did last time, about not making out in the store. We just laughed him off. George then told him the good news, that I accepted the offer to move in once I finished school. Fred was very happy to hear the news. Like George said, he seemed more excited than George was to have me move in. I think it's because Fred probably misses having a woman telling him what to do at home.
   
When we went back to school, I quickly realized how obsessed with Draco Malfoy Harry was becoming. He was certain he was working with Voldemort, but he just couldn't put any plausible evidence together that he was. He just had a feeling, a hunch, and he was positive that he was right.
   
Harry has become obsessed with Draco and what he’s doing, he watches him on the Marauder’s Map, and he talks about finding out what he’s up to nonstop and it’s getting on Hermione’s nerves. I’m honestly worried about Draco, curious to know if he is working for the Dark Lord or not. I didn’t want to know what he was doing if he was working for Voldemort. It didn't involve me so I didn't care, but when it comes to Voldemort Harry has a personal stake in it.
   
I spent all of January and February in a haze. Classes, homework, preparing for my N.E.W.T.’s, and returning George's letters in a timely fashion were all I had time for. I didn't care about anything else. Obviously I was concerned for Harry, but even if Draco was working for Voldemort there was no way Voldemort was going to get anywhere near Hogwarts with all of this new security and Dumbledore around.
   
Then, on Ron’s birthday of March 1st, he got poisoned in an accident. He ate chocolate that had a love potion in it that was meant for Harry that Ron mistook for a birthday present from Harry, and Harry rushed him to professor Slughorn to get an antidote, given that he is the potions master of the school. Then they had a glass of mead to celebrate Ron’s birthday, and Ron became poisoned. He was rushed to the hospital wing just in time.
   
I took Joshua to visit him after dinner that night, and to my surprise Fred and George were here. I was so happy to see them, I just wish they were here for a better reason. I hugged them both, and I kissed George. "What are you guys going here?"
   
"We were in Hogsmeade," says Fred, "Looking into buying Zonko's."
   
"Hey buddy, how are ya?" Asked George as he ruffled up Joshua's hair.
   
"Better than he is," says Joshua, giving a nod to Ron on the bed.
   
I wanted to be happy for them but one look at Ron on the bed and I was brought back to the reality of the situation. "Is he going to be okay?" I ask, looking at anyone who knows.
   
"Yeah," Says Harry, nodding. "He's going to be okay. He just needs to rest now."
   
Hagrid came to visit Ron too. He said he would have come earlier but he was in the forest all day with his Spider Aragog, I guess he's not doing well.
   
The next monumental thing to happen was Harry getting hit in the head with a Bludger during the Ravenclaw VS Gryffindor Quidditch match and cracking his skull. He had to stay in the hospital wing with Ron over the weekend while his bones were being mended.
   
Hermione told us that Ginny and her boyfriend Dean have been fighting a lot. Their latest fight was about Harry, he was making fun of the Bludger hitting him and Ginny didn’t find it very funny. Hermione told us this as we walked Harry and Ron back to Gryffindor tower on Monday morning. Lavender wasn’t very happy to see Hermione with them, and she and Ron broke up then. Ron was sick of her anyways.
   
Harry figured out that Malfoy was doing whatever he was doing in the Room of Requirement so he could be unknown. Harry started standing outside of the Room of Requirement, pacing back and forth in his invisibility cloak waiting to catch Draco doing whatever it is that Harry thinks he’s doing.
   
I stopped caring. I just wasn't interested anymore. Harry had let a feeling, an inkling, take over his life. And I didn't like it, but I also wasn't going to enable him by entertaining this idea. I told him what I knew, which was nothing, and then I let it go.
   
Aragog, Hagrid’s pet spider that he’s had since he was a student at Hogwarts, passed away, and Hagrid invited them to the burial. They all said they weren’t going to go. But then Harry took his Liquid Luck potion that he won back in the first week of school and he ended up going and not getting caught, but he also persuaded Slughorn to give him that untampered with memory. So he was able to kill two birds with one stone, really.
   
This was the first I had heard of this memory thing. I guess he and Dumbledore are trying to find out more about Voldemort's past. That's all I was told. I wasn't allowed to know anything else. I wasn't part of the inner trio. It didn't bother me not knowing, either. The less I know the better.
   
It was already late May by the time I knew it. The only houses in the running for the Quidditch House Cup were Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. Harry got himself kicked out of the game, because he used a dark spell on Draco called Sectumsempra that sliced his neck and chest open. Draco started bleeding out on the boys bathroom floor.
   
Everyone in Slytherin House that night that Harry accidentally attacked Draco was frantic. One of our own was chosen one. It was terrible, honestly, and Harry felt terrible. Nadine and I were the only ones that believed it was a terrible accident. Pansy Parkinson tried to tell everyone it was an attack, I stood up to her. Told her that Harry didn't even know what the spell did. She didn't believe me, but I didn't care. I stood up for my friend, and that's all that mattered to me.
   
If it hadn’t been for the ghost Moaning Myrtle yelling that there had been a murder, Draco would have died because Harry was in too much shock to do anything. Professor Snape was able to stop the bleeding and get Draco to the Hospital wing in time before too much damage had occurred.
   
Harry had detention with Snape every Saturday for the rest of term, to which he deserved it honestly. He couldn't play in the last Quidditch game, and he had Ginny take his spot as Seeker. Her now ex-boyfriend Dean Thomas had played her spot as Chaser.
   
They ended up winning the game thanks to Ginny, and the next morning I heard that while they were all celebrating in their Common Room when Harry walked right up to her and kissed her right on the lips.
   
My first reaction was to look at Ron, and see what he thought of this. He was actually smiling. He was happy. That was good. Ginny has only had a crush on Harry since she met him, I can imagine how she must feel right now. I bet she's over the moon excited.

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Here's part 25!

I kind of skipped around the timelines a bit.

I just wanted to get George  back into the story as quick as I can.

-Emily Winchester.