Learn to Love Again | George Weasley

19. Love Potions

February 1999

George was still in a rut of being quite useless at the store, but he did give Verity detailed instructions on how to brew their WonderWitch brand of love potions in time for Valentine's Day. It had only taken her an entire morning's worth of nagging to get the recipe from him last week and luckily she got top marks in potions during her Hogwarts days, so it only took a weekend to complete enough stock to hopefully get them through the romantic holiday.

She honestly didn't agree with the idea of selling love potions, and even told the twins they were absolutely mad when they first brought up the idea of creating their own love potion products years ago.

After learning about Amortentia in their seventh year from a book they somehow got out of the restricted section of the library, they were convinced that they should make their own version. Being friends with the twins taught Verity from an early age that it was usually best to not ask questions, so she never asked them how they got the book. But she thought seventeen year olds teaching themselves how to brew the strongest love potion on the planet was a disaster waiting to happen, and their twisted idea of selling their own version only confirmed her thoughts.

No matter how much she tried to persuade them to not attempt making their own version and no matter how many times she tried to remind them that there was a reason Snape refused to teach love potions, Fred just told her it was because Snape was a bitter and lonely git and they promptly continued their experimentations.

But she simply couldn't deny that they were the number one selling item every February, as sad as it was. If the twins were anything other than mad geniuses and masters of chaos, they were incredibly talented businessmen who knew exactly what the people wanted.

The only issue Verity ran into while brewing the potion over the weekend was that she had to finally face something that she had been trying to avoid for months. Amortentia's key characteristic is smelling strongly of things that you find most attractive and George's version still held on to that characteristic, though not as powerfully. But she couldn't deny the fact that she smelled the faint scent of leather and smoke the entire weekend, and it certainly was no coincidence.

Verity was in the midst of stocking the main display with the small vials of light pink liquid when the familiar scent wafted next to her.

"Morning, love." Charlie greeted her with a warm smile.

It wasn't a new nickname he had for her and she knew it didn't really mean anything to Charlie. The way it so casually fell from his lips made her believe there was no way there could possibly be any affection behind it.

"You're late." she replied, shooting a sly smirk at him before flicking her wand causing more bottles to float to the top of the display.

"Only five minutes, plus you're not my boss missy." he replied, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well your boss locks himself in his office for days at a time, so I suppose I'm the next best thing."

"Whatever you say, Ver." he chuckled lightly.

"Get that other box of love potions for me, would you?" she asked, pointing to the box on the counter.

"Why can't you get it yourself?"

"Do you work here or not?" she rolled her eyes.

Charlie gave her a smile before turning to retrieve the box for her, "I didn't realize we had this much left in storage."

"We didn't, I spent the entire weekend brewing it all." she replied, grabbing the box from his arms.

"You did? Why didn't you ask for help?" he asked as his face fell into a frown.