Chapter Text
"Ange, I need to go. Are you ready yet?” George Weasley paced back and forth, running a hand through his hair.
Today was an important day; he had to give a presentation to some American wizards about why they should sell Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes in the US, and he simply couldn’t be late.
Angelina was supposed to take the kids to nursery this morning. They were too young to travel by side-along apparition, so had to be taken by Floo which took twice as long. He couldn’t afford to waste the time it would take to get them to nursery; he had to be at the American office in five minutes.
“Almost ready, Fred,” Angelina called down the stairs. George gritted his teeth - that was the third time this week. “You can just leave the kids and go, they’ll be fine.”
Only they wouldn’t be fine. Fred and Roxie had a habit of starting tiny magical fires if they weren’t watched. At only two they were every bit as mischievous as George and his long-deceased twin had been.
Footsteps upstairs informed him that Angelina was now ready. She hurried down the stairs a second later, calling the twins.
“Daddy’s got to go out now. Come and say goodbye.”
Two small bodies collided into his legs with the force of a baby rhinoceros.
“Be good today,” he told them. “No changing people’s hair colour, okay?”
They looked up at him, identical angelic grins on their young faces.
“Okay Daddy.”
“Right, well I’d better be off,” George looked over at Angelina.
She frowned, tilting her head.
“Your hair’s a bit messy,” she said. “Come on kids.”
And with that she bundled the twins off into the kitchen for some breakfast, leaving George in the hallway feeling like an afterthought.
“I’ll be back by 5,” he called. “I love you.”
His words bounced back to him in the hallway. He waited for a moment, hoping for a response. Then he shrugged into his coat and disapparated.
***
“Look what I’ve got…,” Oliver Wood dangled the latest copy of Quidditch Weekly in front of Katie Bell’s face.
She shrieked in surprise and leapt about a foot in the air. Several other people in the Leaky Cauldron turned and stared.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that!” She swatted his arm. “Are you trying to kill me with shock?”
Oliver chuckled and sat down opposite her. “So you don’t want to know the team listings then? I can just throw this in the bin….”
“Of course I do, you idiot,” Katie rolled her eyes at Oliver. He was always such a showman.
“Well then, let’s see,” Oliver crossed one leg over the other and shook the magazine open officiously. “Oh that’s interesting,” he said airily, “and oh, that’s a bold choice.”
“What is it?” Katie asked, trying to peek over the top of the magazine.
Oliver flicked it up out of the way. Katie sighed, waiting for him to stop being so dramatic.
“Hmm,” Oliver read on. Then, “Oh dear…,” he frowned at Katie over the top of the magazine.
“What is it? Why are you frowning at me?” She leapt up impatiently. “What’s happened? Have they picked Davies instead of me?”
Oliver shut the magazine and put it on the table between them.
“Perhaps now isn’t the best time,” he said.
Katie scowled at him and snatched the magazine, rifling through the pages.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Oliver said, an unusually unreadable expression on his handsome face.
There it was! The team listings - it was horrible that they had to find out the results this way. And Oliver had seemed to suggest… well, it didn’t bear thinking about!
Katie scanned the page quickly. Ah, Puddlemere United; this was it. She ran her eyes down the list. Keeper, Oliver Wood… Chasers… Katie Bell! She was in the first team!
She looked up at Oliver, who had a massive grin on his face, and threw the magazine at him.
“I’m going to kill you!” She laughed, throwing her gloves and scarf at him as well. “I thought I’d been benched!”
“It was just too much fun pretending you weren’t in,” Oliver smirked, throwing the gloves back at her. “And your reaction was great.”
“You’re so mean,” Katie pulled a face at him.
“But I’m pretty hot so that makes up for it,” Oliver grinned at her. “Shall we go celebrate?”
“So modest too,” Katie laughed. “Sounds great, what do you have in mind?”
“Oh I can think of something,” Oliver said, winking at her suggestively. “Shall we get out of here?”
He stood up and offered his arm to Katie.
“Excellent plan, Mr Wood,” Katie giggled; today was a good day.
***
George stared morosely into the bottom of his glass. He and Angelina were at The Leaky Cauldron for a drink before meeting her parents for dinner, and so far he hadn’t spoken to her for more than two minutes. She’d spotted a couple of colleagues when they had arrived and had disappeared to speak to them for a while, and then had gone to the bathroom for going on twenty minutes now.
His mind returned to that morning when she had called him Fred again. It was a fairly regular occurrence and often he shrugged it off as the typical mother forgetting names thing; he had been called by all of his brothers’ names throughout his childhood and who could blame Molly for getting confused? Lately though it had him wondering whether Angelina had just stayed with him because he looked like Fred.
But that was silly thinking. It was nearly five years since Fred died, which was more than enough time to get over the loss of him. For George it was certainly enough for the majority of the time; there were fewer and fewer occasions where he paused halfway through a sentence expecting his twin to finish it, and he rarely got sad at his reflection in the bathroom mirror anymore.
Angelina was fine, he was sure. The weirdness in their relationship was probably due to having two toddlers occupying all of their time and not letting them have any time together.
Still, he missed feeling the warmth of her, even just a hug. It had been a long while since he had held her or felt close to her, and he wondered whether that was the reason for the distance between them.
There was a loud jangling as the door of the pub swung open, hitting the bell above it. In tumbled a crowd of 15 or so people, talking and laughing loudly. George looked around and realised he recognised several faces; it was the Puddlemere United team busy celebrating. As they surged towards two of the big tables in the middle of the pub, the group thinned a little and he caught a glimpse of a familiar blond ponytail. It was Katie Bell.
Goodness he hadn’t seen her properly for almost four years years. She’d popped in to the Burrow a few weeks ago to drop off a Christmas gift from her parents to his, but he’d only been picking up Fred and Roxie so hadn’t had a chance to speak to her.
She was standing next to Oliver, laughing at something he had said as she accepted a butterbeer from another teammate. Oliver has his arm around her shoulders and when she wasn’t looking he slipped the bottle out of her grasp and took a swig. Katie jabbed him with her elbow, looking mildly annoyed.
“Oh look, it’s Oliver!” Angelina appeared next to him. “We should go and say hi, it’s draft day so he’ll know if he’s on the team for this season.”
“Really? We’ve not seen him for a while,” George said, not overly keen to join the loud group.
“Well exactly,” Angelina said, giving him a confused look, “we used to be good friends at Hogwarts. Come on.”
Without waiting for him she took off across the pub. George followed reluctantly.
“Oliver, hi,” Angelina smiled, opening her arms for a hug. “How are you? And Katie, nice to see you,” she added, smiling over at Katie.
“Ange, George, long time no see,” Oliver grinned. “We’re great, just found out that this little lady made the first team.”
He reached round and patted Katie square on her behind. Katie smiled, though she still looked rather annoyed.
“Wow congratulations,” Angelina smiled. “Isn’t that great, George?”
“Yeah, brilliant news,” he said quickly.
Katie looked at him properly for the first time, an unreadable expression on her face. George felt strangely uncomfortable having this cheerful conversation as though none of their shared history existed.
Katie looked away first.
“Thank you, it’s such an honour to be on the first team,” Katie smiled at Angelina. “How are you guys doing? How are the twins?”
“We’re doing well,” Angelina said, “the twins are just growing and growing. George had a meeting today with an American company to market his products over there.”
“Oh that’s really exciting George,” Katie said enthusiastically, looking back at him. “Did it go well?”
“Yes I think so, hopefully we will be able to have an international store.”
“That’s so great! Wow, you’ve come so far from a mail order service out of your old bedroom,” Katie smiled.
George was struck by a sudden memory of that summer; he and Fred sitting on the floor of their bedroom with Katie, sifting through order forms. Testing new products with Katie sitting against the door so Molly wouldn’t burst in and shout at them. The three of them sitting down for dinner with the rest of his family, trying to ignore the pain that the Fever Fudge-induced boils were causing. What a summer that had been.
“Thank goodness,” Angelina said. “It’s such a relief that we don’t have all of that around the house. Fred and Roxie would cause a lot of trouble if they got into it.”
George glanced over at Oliver who wasn’t looking quite so jolly anymore; he was watching Katie with a slight frown on his face. The conversation dropped and George felt uncomfortable again.
“Well,” he said, trying to shake the feeling, “it’s been lovely to see you but we’d better get going. We’re meeting Ange’s parents for dinner in a few minutes.”
“Going anywhere nice?” Oliver asked, looking at Angelina.
“That new place up by Gringotts,” George said.
Oliver didn’t look at him.
“Yeah we thought we’d try it out,” Angelina agreed. “It looks pretty nice.”
“You’ll have to let us know what it’s like,” Oliver said, still steadfastly ignoring George.
“I’m sure we will,” George said, wondering what was wrong. “See you soon then, enjoy your evening.”
As he and Angelina left the Leaky Cauldron George couldn’t shake the feeling that he had done something to offend Oliver.
***
Katie watched them go, feeling oddly uncomfortable. It was strange to see George and Angelina after so long, and it had felt quite normal for the most part. What then was this nagging feeling in her stomach that something was wrong?
“Let’s get another drink,” Oliver said, abruptly jerking her out of her thoughts.
“I’ve still got one,” Katie said, but she caught sight of the irritation in Oliver’s eyes so followed him away from the team.
“What the hell was that?” He demanded as soon as they were out of earshot.
“What was what?” Katie asked slowly, confused.
Oliver’s mood was a long way from how relaxed and happy he had been earlier that afternoon as they lay in bed together.
“You bloody well know what!” Oliver snapped. When Katie continued to stare at him blankly he elaborated further; “You, staring all gooey-eyed at George!”
Katie’s face was a picture of disbelief.
“Gooey-eyed?” She echoed, a touch of amusement in her voice, “What in Merlin’s name do you mean, Oliver?”
“Don’t play dumb, Katie,” Oliver retorted forcefully. “You guys had that big romance at Hogwarts and then Angelina swooped in and took him. You can’t tell me you don’t still have feelings for him!”
“Ol, that was like three years ago, don’t you think I’d have moved on by now?” Katie said exasperatedly. “I have moved on, remember? I’m with you.”
“And you’re not lying to me?” Oliver asked sceptically.
“Of course not!” Katie snapped. “Oliver, you’ve been thinking I’m still in love with George the whole time we’ve been together. If I was, I would have told you by now.”
“Okay,” Oliver said finally. “I’m sorry. It just felt like you were acting strangely when we spoke to them.”
Katie sighed, taking hold of his hands and pushing away the feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“We’ve had a really nice day, let’s not spoil it with any more arguing. Shall we get some FireWhiskey?”
And it wasn’t until later, in their little flat with Oliver sleeping deeply by her side, that Katie remembered how deeply wretched she had felt when George abandoned her. But she was absolutely positive that she didn’t have feelings for him anymore; she loved the hotheaded, gorgeous Quidditch player lying next to her. Of course she did.
Far away, in the sleepy little village over the hill from the Burrow, George lay awake too, listening to the sound of Angelina murmuring in her sleep. She softly whispered ‘Fred’ into the darkness, and George felt his heart sink a little further. Not for the first time did he wish that Fred was still alive; at least then Angelina would be happy.