738 days after the war

Verity goes back to the Wheeze precisely two years and two months after the war.

She waited the war out in Scotland, mostly, with her ailing grandmother, but as soon as she gets the news that it's won and done, she packs a bag and tries to leave.

But, this is her life, and nothing ever works out that easily for her.

It takes her a year and a half to get her grandmother comfortable with her leaving, and another eight months to find a caregiver willing to stay with a fussy old woman, and when she finally makes her way back, she's struck by how very different everything is. The entire world seems less bright now, less happy. It's scarred, she thinks as she walks up Diagon Alley. It's been cut and cut and it's just now starting to scab over.

She sees the scars in the haunted looks in the passerby's faces, in the way parents pull their children tight against them and everyone is wary and suspicious. She knows that the Wheeze can't have escaped this scarring, but she doesn't fully understand the depths of the destruction the war caused until she's standing in the doorway of the Wheeze and all she sees is emptiness. Empty shelves, empty show tables, empty boxes and bottles scattered across the floor. She thinks of how it used to be, light and fun, a beacon in a dark time, and her heart cracks, just a little.

Once upon a time, it would've been enough to break her, but Verity is not the same as she once was.

"Hello?" She calls tentatively. "Mr. Weasley?"

"Blimey, it's been a while since someone called me that," A voice says behind her, and she jumps a little and turns around.

George Weasley stands in front of her, shirt untucked, bottle in hand.

"You can't sneak up on a witch like that, Mr. Weasley," She says reprovingly, but she hugs him tightly anyway, and she tries to ignore the smell of alcohol clinging to his clothes. "You might get shot."

"Shot, you say?" George pulls back to look at her. "My dear Verity, I've already lost an ear and a brother. I highly doubt there's anything left of me to shoot."

She knew Fred had died, of course, but Verity still feels like a cold hand has grabbed her insides and twisted. How true, she thinks sadly. George looks like a shadow of his former self, like a paper cutout of a man. She forces a sad sort of smile and says, "Well, one could always aim for your reproductive organs,"

"Oh, Miss Saunders, you are devious," George says, and a hint of a spark appears in his dulled blue eyes. He takes a swig of his bottle and smiles wryly at her expression. "Now, Verity, you're going to tell me to stop it, right? You're going to tell me that Fred wouldn't want me to live like this."

Verity swallows, her tongue suddenly thick and dry in her mouth. "No," she replies. "No, I'm going to tell you that it's not polite to drink in front of a guest. Not unless you offer them some, as well."

George raises an eyebrow, but he extends the bottle in her direction, and his mouth opens a little when she takes it and drinks deeply. "Ver, you do know that's pure vodka mixed with Firewhiskey? That could kill a little thing like you."

"Don't patronize me, Mr. Weasley," She says, taking another gulp. "I drank my way through that war."

George laughs, and even though it's a harsh, grating sound, she hears a hint of George Weasley the flirt, George Weasley the prankster, the George Weasley she knew. "Well, well, Little Verity Saunders has a bit of a rebellious side, does she?"

"Oh, please, Mr. Weasley," She says, handing him back the bottle, already feeling the affects of the drink. "I am not little, and drinking a bit is not going to incapacitate me."

"You are most definitely little, my dear Verity," he says with a smirk. "You're barely taller than my niece Victoire, and she's only a year old."

"I didn't know you had a niece," she says, and accepts the bottle again.

"That's because she was born while you were away," George says, and he sinks til he's sitting on the floor. "My brother Bill's kid. But you wouldn't know, you were hiding out in Scotland, weren't you?"

"I-" Verity begins the sentence indignantly, but trails off and takes another drink. "Yes. Yes, I suppose I was."

George looks at her for a bit. Then, he shrugs. "S'okay. Everyone hides."

"Not from war, they don't," she mutters. Her vision is already blurring. "A bloody coward, that's what I am,"

"If you're a coward, mate, I don't know what that makes me," George stares listlessly across the room. "You hid in Scotland, I'm hiding in the Wheeze. I'm just as bad."

"Are you?" Verity is already overly tipsy, but she doesn't stop herself from taking another drink. "Well, then, here's to being bloody cowards."

And George laughs again, the harsh, grating sound, and in his eyes she sees a flicker of life.

918 days after the war

Angelina sweeps into the Wheeze about six months after Verity, and she brings with her a set of new rules and an all-new heartache.

The store has been open for a good month and a half, and they're doing perfectly well, better than well, really. George and Verity drink less and less, and they spend more time in the store than at the pub. Diagon Alley is still scabbing itself over, but the scars growing less and less.

And then, Angelina changes everything.

She throws away all of George's alcohol and forces him out into the world again. She cleans the entire flat above the Wheeze, much better than any of Verity's failed attempts. She brings back light, she brings back laughter, and she brings back George.

He laughs more when she's around, Verity notices. He laughs and he jokes and he's less of a paper-cutout and more of a man. He even takes Angelina back with him to the Burrow, which Verity will admit stung.

Verity's heart does a painful 360 every time she sees them together, and she tries not to think about why. This little crush she has on George is precisely that; a little crush, born from shared pain and too little male companionship, and even in the midst of him she knows she's not what he needs.

Verity is naturally flighty, naturally everywhere and anywhere. George needs stability, not a drinking buddy, and she understands that.

Really, she does.

And if she finds a way to never be in the shop when Angelina comes round, well, that's just a coincidence.

But it gets harder and harder to avoid her, avoid them, especially because Angelina is bringing out a new side to George; she's making him cut his hair so it covers his missing ear, making sure his shirts are tucked in, making him less of a flirt and more of a homebody. Verity is beyond uncomfortable by this; the George she knows is slightly unkempt and slightly mad, not crisp and clean and constantly planning, never doing.

She finally figures it out on a Wednesday afternoon, one where she couldn't escape AngelinaandGeorge and is forced to help them clean out one of the back storage rooms.

"Oi!" George cries indignantly as she throws a box of Decoy Detonators at him. "Be careful! If those go off-"

"We'll deal with it," Verity snaps. "Or, more likely, I'll deal with it."

"Whoa, Verity," Angelina says amicably. "I'm sensing some anger."

"Very observant," Verity mutters. "It's nothing; I'm probably just PMSing."

At this point, the old George probably would have said something like "ah, that great killer of both men and dreams" and set them all laughing, but this George simply exchanges a look with Angelina and continues sorting in silence.

It takes Verity a moment, but she recognizes that look.

It's the look Fred wore when the entire stock of Peruvian darkness powder spilled or when George forgot to pay the rent again. It's a look of exasperated affection mixed with annoyance, and it's purely and utterly Fred's.

So where does George get off using it on her?

This, she thinks, this is what struck her as odd about Angelina. This is what made her think twice, not that stupid crush she still secretly harbors.

It's the fact that Angelina is still hopelessly in love with Fred, and through her ministrations, George, she realizes, is turning into Fred.

That's why Angelina came back to the Wheeze, that's why she's been putting George in dress robes and ties and cutting his hair.

They're both harboring onto Fred, and they both think that George is the way to get him back.

2043 days after the war

Roxanne and Fred II are born five years, nine months, and a couple of days after the war, and Verity loves them from the moment she sees them.

George and Angelina have been married maybe two months when she goes into labor, and Verity bites her nails to stubs and leaves pacing marks in the floor at the Wheeze waiting for them to come home. When they finally do, she takes one look at them, with their pale skin and red-tinted hair, and she falls so hopelessly in love with them it's as though she's been charmed.

Angelina goes back to work not even a month after they're born, at a new job in the newest Ministry Department, and she travels all the time, so mostly it's George and Verity by themselves, and that's exactly how Verity likes it. She's got her own small apartment in the city for when she gets fed up, but mostly she spends her time taking care of the children, and that works for her.

She and George grow closer, while Angelina's gone. They strap the babies in the pram and going strolling down Diagon Alley and the tame parts of London and they talk about their lives before the war. She tells him of sketchbooks and charcoal-smudged fingers, and he tells her of Christmas jumpers and snow-covered gardens.

Sometimes, like when she pauses to hold a fussy Roxanne or when she and George sing old Beatles songs to Freddy, people stop and tell them what a cute couple they are, what adorable children they have. This is always awkward, of course, because George loves to play it off by wrapping an arm around Verity's waist and dropping a kiss on her hair and saying, "Oh, yes, my Frances and I, we complete each other" in a bad Scottish accent, and because Verity wishes fervently that it was true, that this was her family, that these were her children and George was her husband and she had someone to go back to each night when she leaves the Wheeze.

Her little crush isn't so little anymore; in fact, it's full-blown infatuation, as her mate Chelsea likes to say, and it gets harder and harder to keep it hidden. She needs something to take her mind away from him, even for just a second. A second free, that's all she needs for this problem to go away.

So she begins to slowly distance herself from the Wheeze (it doesn't work) and from the children (it's hopeless) and especially from George (as if that could ever happen), but it seems the farther she gets, the more it feels like George is refusing to let her go. It could be because Angelina is spending longer and longer on her 'business' trips, or it could be because George has lost so much in his life, he refuses to let her go as well.

But personally, Verity thinks it's because Freddy calls her Mumma.

She doesn't plan it; she doesn't purposefully try to present herself like that, or to steal Angelina's place. All she does is read to him one night in the flat above the Wheeze while George makes them dinner.

"See, Freddy, this is an elephant, yeah? They're big and large and they-oh, bollocks, Fred, don't eat the paper!" She says exasperatedly, prying the page out of the little boy's mouth.

"He's my son, that one," George calls from the kitchen. "Definitely got my genes."

"Heaven help him," She calls back, and presses a kiss to Freddy's forehead. "You're too sweet to be an old git like your daddy, aren't you?"

"Mummy!" he says in response, grabbing for her nose.

Verity freezes. Then, she calls up to the kitchen, "George, when did Fred learn to talk?"

"A couple days ago. I was trying to keep it a secret, surprise both you and Angie when she gets back," George calls back. "What'd he say to you?"

"Nothing," she calls back. "It's nothing."

"Mumma!" Fred says more clearly, waving his pudgy three-year-old hands. "Mumma! Mumma!"

"Blimey," Verity says in awe. "Blimey, George, I think he's talking about…me."

This time, George freezes.

"Mumma!" Fred says again, and this time there's no mistaking it; he means Verity, and no-one else.

George turns off the stove and walks over to them, taking Fred in his arms gingerly. "You little bugger- did you just call Verity your Mummy?"

"Mumma!" The little boy wails a little this time and extends his arms toward Verity.

Roxy toddles over, now intrigued by her brother's cry, and climbs into Verity's lap.

"Well," George says wryly. "It seems my children have taken a liking to you, my dear Verity."

"I'm sorry," Verity says hastily. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"S'okay," George says quietly, bitterly. "Reckon you've been more of a mum than Ang has."

Verity shifts Roxy on her lap and gently touches George's knee. "Is-is everything alright between the two of you?"

"Everything's fine." He says shortly, and Verity falls silent, gently playing with Roxy's wild curls.

She can't take more than a minute of this: soon the silence is suffocating, and she has to get away, leave this place that is all pastels and lace, all Angelina. She gently sets Roxy on the floor and stands up.

"Where're you going?" George asks suddenly, as she searches for her keys.

"I'm going home," She says, shoving her shoes on and reaching for her purse. "I don't want to make things awkward."

"You're not making things awkward," George says, setting Fred down next to Roxy. "Don't rush off like this, you'll hurt Roxy's feelings."

"I'll bring something pink with me to work tomorrow, she'll get over it," Verity shrugs on her winter coat and makes for the door, only to be stopped by a sudden pressure around her wrist.

George's big hand is encircling it, and somehow the heat from his skin seems both deadly and warm. "Please, Ver. Don't leave."

She opens her mouth to protest, but he gives her wrist a gentle tug, and, per her luck, she falls next to him, her head awkwardly on his lap, her feet splayed across the remainder of the couch.

The air is suddenly thick and hot, and every breath Verity takes is suddenly shallow. George's face is directly above hers, and she sees in his eyes not a spark but an inferno of life, and she registers in the back of her mind that his face is moving closer and closer to hers and he whispers "My dear Verity" almost reverently and-

The moment his lips brush hers, Verity forgets to breath, and her heart cracks a little more.

2073 days after the war

Verity leaves the Wheeze (for the second time) approximately three years, ten months, after she comes back from Scotland.

It's a hard decision, especially since she's grown to love it and everything that comes with so much her heart seems irreparably broken at the thought of leaving. She's spent the past eight years of her life working at the shop; it's wormed its way into everything she has, everything she is. Roxy and Freddy are practically her children, now; they both regularly call her Mummy (though never when Angelina's around) and George-George is George.

She's spent eight years of her life secretly liking him, secretly being infatuated with him, secretly loving him, and now, she's leaving him, and nothing seems like it could ever hurt more.

See, the thing about Verity Saunders is this: really, she's just a big teenager. She's reckless and impulsive and she drinks way too much and she falls hard. She's twenty-six years old; she should have a family now. A real one, not a surrogate one. A real family with a husband and a house in the country, not just a flat. She shouldn't ever feel lonely at this age; childish emotions like jealousy and despair, they should be far behind her by now.

But see, Verity Saunders is a woman who simply can't grow up, and she's done pretending differently.

Her resignation papers make a nice thump when they hit George's kitchen counter; Angelina is braiding Roxy's hair, so she can't see the flush of emotion on George's face.

"What the hell are these, Verity?" He says quietly, his volume concealing the anger in his tone.

"I should think you could read, Mr. Weasley," She says snidely, brushing a strand of short blonde hair from her eyes. "That's my official quitting statement."

George looks at her for a long moment, and then takes the papers and rips them neatly down the middle. "Since when do you call me Mr. Weasley?"

"Since when is it alright to rip an employee's papers?" Verity says indignantly. Freddy looks up, his hazel eyes widening slightly.

"Since I decided not to accept them," George says, and smiles at her insolently. "Coffee?"

"Decided not to-" Verity breaks off, too angry to speak. "Listen, Mr. Weasley, I'm going to leave the Wheeze whether or not you accept the papers. You might as well do it so we can pretend to part amicably."

"Yeah, I'd rather not." George says, ripping the torn halves into even smaller pieces. "Quitting-it's not my style. I'd hate to think it was yours."

"I'd hate to rip your bloody face off, but I'm going to do it anyway in a second." Verity snarls at him. "I wish I could say it was nice working with you."

"But it was." George's voice takes on a new quality. "We got on great, Verity. My kids love you; my family loves you. The work isn't that hard. There's no reason for you to leave."

"There's plenty of reason for me to leave, but I'd rather not go into that." Verity grabs her bag from the floor and walks to the door. "It was a mistake, coming up here. I should've known you'd be like this."

George begins to say something, but Freddy's innocent little voice interrupts him. "Mumma?"

Angelina looks up and smiles a little. "I'm over here, darling."

But Freddy doesn't toddle over to Angelina; instead, his unsteady little feet lead him to Verity, and he grasps the fabric of her trousers in his hands. "Mumma!"

There's no doubting who he means, and Angelina's face crumples like Verity's slapped her.

Verity bends down, strokes the dark wisps of Freddy's hair, and says, "I'm not your mum, Freddy. I wish I was, but I'm not." Pressing a kiss to his forehead, she straightens up and heads for the door.

George grabs her wrist as she turns, his grip tight and insistent. "Is this about the other night, Verity?"

Angelina looks up again, pain still scrawled across her face. "What other night?"

"Yes, George!" Verity breaks down, exasperated. "Yes, it's about that bloody night, why else would I leave? It's not as if I have any family to want me, not as if I have my own husband and children who need me at home, not as if anyone would miss me if I just left! All I'm doing here is confusing the kids and myself and I can't-I can't live like this anymore!"

"So what, then, Verity, are you going to just disappear?" George's eyes are pleading, but his voice is cold and hard. "Going to run away from this, from me? That's what you do when things get hard, isn't it? You go hide out in Scotland?"

Verity feels as though he's punched her in the throat, and for a moment, she stands there, angry and hurt and filled with thousands of different emotions. Finally, she bites out, "Go fuck yourself," and she yanks her wrist away and tears down the front stairs.

She's halfway down Diagon Alley before she hears George's voice calling out for her to come back, to please not leave him, that he'll find her again, and once upon a time, it would've been enough to break her.

Except, Verity is not the same as she was once upon a time.

2498 days after the war

Exactly seven years, two months, and eleven days after the war, George finds her.

She's living with her grandmother in Scotland again, all alone in a big, drafty manor house, and she's too prideful to go back to the Wheeze, but damn, she wants to. She wants to drag her polka-dotted suitcase back up Diagon Alley, she wants Roxy and Freddy to cling to her legs and beg for her attention, and most of all, she wants George.

She wants the little sparks of life in his eyes and she wants his untucked shirts and stained jumpers and she wants his little flat above the Wheeze and she wants to be a part of his family. And at the same time, she wants to prove that she's not just a hopeless little kid, too dramatic to not run away but too dependant to not come back. She wants him to experience pain at losing her, she wants him to miss her.

So she doesn't go back. She stays in her safe place, with her finicky grandmother and Finn, her grandmother's Scottish caretaker, where an owl delivers the Daily Prophet everyday and the only time she sees Weasley red hair is in the moving photographs.

Harry and Ginny Potter have their second son, Ron and Hermione Weasley have a little girl, Kingsley Shacklebolt takes over as Minister of Magic, Arthur Weasley has been promoted- these are all mere headlines to her now, mere remnants of a life she used to lead and love.

And still, she doesn't go back.

She probably never would, to be honest, if George hadn't tracked her down.

She's cooking her grandmother some oatmeal one Sunday morning in her silk nightie when there comes a knock at the door.

"Grandmother, could you get that?" She calls, stirring the pot with an old wooden spoon.

"Absolutely not, child. I am ninety-six years old; I have earned a good rest and I'll keep it!" Her grandmother says, a thick Scottish accent coloring her tone. "Now go, it's impolite to keep guests waiting."

Verity mutters a string of curses under her breath, turns off the oatmeal, and pads to the door, the wood floor chilly against her bare feet.

"Hel-" She begins before she's even opened the door all the way, but she stops speaking immediately the moment she sees him.

His hair is longer, now; he's a little thinner, and with the thick swirls of Scottish snow behind him he looks positively tiny, but there's a determined look in his eyes.

She moves to close the door in his face, but he sticks a foot in the doorway, nonverbally pleading with her to let him in, to listen to him.

"What are you doing here, George?" She says tiredly, acutely aware of her lack of clothing.

"I told you I'd find you, Ver." He looks at her with a strange amusement in his eyes. "I'll admit, in hindsight, this is quite stalkerish and I wouldn't blame you if you slammed the door in my face, but I'm here now and it's bloody freezing out here-"

"I am going to slam this door in your face in two seconds," Verity says flatly. "It's bloody cold out here and I'm not going to waste my time-"

"Angelina and I split up," George says, and Verity lets him in.

Her grandmother is asleep on the couch when they walk in (it's probably the pain medication) so she takes him to her bedroom instead. "What do you mean, you split up? What about the kids?"

"We split up. We both realized that we just weren't right for each other.." He looks out of her window at the snow falling outside and smiles a little. "And that's so like you. To ask about the kids first. You never think about yourself, do you, Ver?"

"I ran away from a bloody war, George," Verity slides a hand through her hair. "And then I came back and I ran away from you. I'm pretty sure the only thing I think about is myself."

"That's not true at all, but whatever. That's not what I came here to talk to you about." He takes a deep breath. "I want you to come back."

"I gathered that. The answer is no."

"Roxanne and Fred miss you."

"I'm sure they do, and I'm sorry for that," Verity says. "But I'm not going back."

"So, what? You're going to hide the rest of your life? Live out here in your safe place?" George turns his eyes on her. "Don't you miss it, Verity? Don't you miss me?"

"You need to go," Verity says firmly. "You can't just waltz back in here and-mmph!" George cuts her off with a deep, searing kiss that turns her knees to jelly and melts her heart.

When he pulls away, he says, "Verity Saunders, I have been a complete and utter arsehole to you, and I'm sorry for that. I deluded myself into thinking that I didn't love you, that I loved Angelina because Fred loved Angelina and that's what he would've wanted, right?" He laughs humorlessly. "I spent years pushing you away and pulling you back, and you stayed through all of it. You loved my children like they were yours, even though they weren't, and I know that must've been bloody impossible, but you managed it. And see, what I realized was, I don't want an Angelina. I want a drinking buddy. I want someone who I can sing Beatles songs with and teach my kids with and call 'My darling Frances'. I want you, my dear, dear Verity." He looks at her, and his blue eyes seem endless. "And I'm a bloody coward to not have come after you sooner."

Verity stares at him for a long moment, and then she thinks, 'fuck it', and says, "Well, then, here's to bloody cowards."

When she grabs his collar and brings his lips to hers, she forgets to breathe (again) and she's perfectly alright with that.