Author's note

Written for Season 6 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

Round 1: Never Have I Ever

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Chaser 2

Prompt: Write a setting you've never written before

Optional prompts:

11. (dialogue) 'It's like the blind leading the blind.'
13. (word) corporation
14. (quote) 'Imagination is the highest kite that can fly.' —Lauren Bacall

Word count (excluding author's note): 1,905

A Kite Without Wind

It was while he was closing up shop one day, on an unusually temperate April evening, that he realised it. He didn't have much of a head for grammar, but now that he was running the shop alone, shouldn't it be Weasley's Wizard Wheezes instead of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes? He chuckled quietly, imagining how Fred would tease him if he knew it had taken him nearly two years to pick out a grammatical mistake. 'Guess that makes me the good-looking one and the smart one, then!'

'Need anything else, George?' the shop assistant, Verity, called from across the room as she vanished the pile of dust she'd just finished sweeping up.

George closed the folder of invoices he was inspecting and returned it to its spot underneath the counter. 'Nah, go on home.'

Verity made for the back room to put away the broom and collect her bookbag. When she came back into the shop, she went up to the counter, set her elbows on it, and propped her chin up on her fists, watching as George began tallying the day's sales.

'Mind, I'm on holiday next week,' she said, peering up at him through her blond fringe.

'Already? Right, thanks for reminding me.'

She paused for a moment as he continued marking up his ledger. 'You told me to get after you if you hadn't hired a new assistant by today.'

'Did I?'

'Said you needed someone to look after the numbers so you can focus on inventing.'

'That does sound like something I'd say.'

George didn't look up from his work, so Verity sighed and stood up straight. 'Well, I've done all I can do. I'm off.'

'See you tomorrow,' he said to the swiftly retreating figure.

Without further distraction, George finished closing up in quick and practiced motions. On his way to the staircase up to his flat, a colourful sign caught his eye. The letters danced about on the wall as if wafting in a breeze: Imagination is the highest kite that can fly. He wasn't sure where Fred had found the quote – some Muggle had said it, apparently – but they'd agreed it would be perfect to put on the wall above their display of self-steering, battling kites.

But the thing about kites, George thought as he trudged up the stairs, was that they still needed wind to fly.

When he entered the kitchen, he found Angelina, Katie, and Ron already there, chatting and drinking butterbeer. They paused their conversation to greet the new arrival.

'Hello, love!' said Angelina, kissing him on the cheek after he plopped down into the chair next to her. 'Ran into these two on the way out of the Ministry, so I invited them over for bevvies.' She summoned a bottle for him as well, and hit it with a quick cooling charm. He smiled appreciatively at her and took a long swig.

Angelina had moved into his flat only a few months ago. It was perhaps a bit soon – they hadn't even been dating a full year yet – but she had quickly come to realise that George was simply not equipped to live on his own. Being alone for hours at a time was new to him, and it had been taking a toll on his already-fragile mental health. They never exactly had a conversation about it, but he knew that she knew that they both knew he was struggling, so when George asked her to move in, she agreed easily. They were both quietly relieved to find that they seemed well suited to domestic partnership.

George tuned back into the conversation just in time to hear Katie finishing a story from work. '…So then Bagman, he turns to the Malawian minister and he says, "I may be a Beater, but you won't see me Beater 'round the bush!"'

The others roared with laughed, and George cracked a grin himself, appreciating the pun he'd caught.

'Ah, classic Ludo,' said Angelina, wiping a tear from her eye. 'Hey, why don't we go out on the balcony and catch the last bit of sunlight before it rains all weekend?'

'Yeah, let's!' said Katie.

Angelina stood quickly, presumably keen on claiming her favourite deckchair, but George interjected. 'I need to put away a few things from the shop before I get too relaxed. You lot go ahead and I'll join you when I'm finished.'

'I'll keep you company, mate,' Ron offered. The girls nodded, grabbed their butterbeers, and headed out to the balcony from the kitchen's adjoining door.

George drained his bottle and picked up the things he'd brought up from the shop – a stack of order forms and a box containing several defective antigravity hats. (They propelled the wearer upwards much too quickly to be safe, as a chagrined customer had discovered earlier that day.) He took them down the hallway to his office, and Ron trailed behind him.

The office was a small, cluttered space, lined on all sides with shelves housing products in varying states of completion. A single desk was set against the window, with some sheets of loose parchment littering its surface.

George set down the order forms and began sorting them into three piles. 'How's work been?'

Ron, leaning against the doorframe, made a face. 'I haven't been on a good mission in months. Harry's far too good at his job—I don't think there's a single dark wizard left in all of England.'

'That's our wonder boy for you. What do you spend all day doing, then?'

'Occasionally there's something decent, like a robbery, but mostly I just respond to pranks that've got out of hand. I'm starting to think they're picking me for those just because half them involve things from your bloody shop.'

George sniggered, and was rewarded with a swat to the head. 'Ouch! Er, I mean—I am filled with remorse to hear that our professions have come to be at odds, brother dear.'

'Remorse enough to stop selling those Wildfire Whiz-bangs?'

'Afraid not, lad. They're a bestseller.'

'They're a nightmare! With missions like these, I'm almost starting to enjoy paperwork…'

George finished with his own paperwork then, and stood to look for a free shelf to store his malfunctioning hats. Ron followed his gaze, taking in the contents of the shelves. 'Made any progress on the towel that turns your hair pink?' he asked.

'Not really, no. It keeps turning my hands pink as well.' George picked up the towel in question and demonstrated, turning his palms a brilliant shade of magenta.

Ron laughed. 'That's good too, though, isn't it?'

'It's not bad, but the hair is the real goal. Much funnier—and harder to hide—than pink hands. And if the prankee sees it on their hands, they'll stop using the towel before it can touch their head.'

'Ah, yeah, that makes sense.'

George put the towel back in its place, shoved a few things around to make room for the antigravity hats, and led Ron back to the kitchen. He got out the soap he'd developed for removing colour-changing charms and took to scrubbing his hands furiously in the sink.

Ron got himself another butterbeer and sat at the table. 'It's been a while since you put out any new products, yeah?'

George took a minute to answer. 'Well, yeah, being understaffed at the shop and all, I haven't really had the time.'

Ron raised a skeptical eyebrow. 'I'm not as thick as I look, mate, and I know that for a fact, because Hermione tells me so and seems to think it passes as a compliment.'

George laughed. 'I'll give you that one, but only because anyone who was actually as thick as you look would only be able to communicate by grunting and pointing.' He put on his best troll impression to emphasise his point, sending magenta soap suds flying across the room.

'Sod off!' Ron said, ducking to dodge a clump of bubbles, and George went back to scrubbing away the colour charm. With his back turned, he spoke quietly.

'You're right, though. That's just an excuse, and I'm not sure I realised it myself until recently. I've been putting off hiring a new hand so that I'd be too busy to properly work on inventions.' His palms finally reached their normal shade and he sought out a kitchen towel. 'It's not the same without Fred. Angelina's a great sounding board, has really smart suggestions about which charms to use and everything, but in the end she's more of a realist when she comments on my ideas. With Fred, when one of us had an idea, we'd go back and forth with more and more ridiculous thoughts until something truly incredible popped up. Without him, I can't come up with anything decent. It's as if… my kite has no wind.'

He finally looked up from his monologue to see Ron frowning in thought – or perhaps in confusion about the kite metaphor?

'The shop's still doing well enough. Fred and I made lots of great products, and they're still in demand. I could probably spend the foreseeable future just coasting, replenishing stock as it runs low, and not worrying about coming up with anything new. But what's the point in running a joke shop like that? Like some joyless corporation, just churning out whatever will make a profit.'

The brothers sat in silence. Over the last few years, Ron had gotten somewhat used to George's outbursts of emotional ranting, but he still never knew quite how to respond. George was fine with that – he just needed to hear himself admit his feelings aloud in order to fully accept them.

'You know, I realised earlier today that the shop's name is wrong. It uses "Weasleys'," plural, but I'm singular now. At first I was going to just keep it that way to honour Fred, but the more I think about it, the more I reckon he wouldn't want to be tied to what the shop's become.'

At this, Ron looked up sharply. 'That's not true.' And after a moment's hesitation, he added, 'But if that's the way you feel… you don't have to change it. You could just add a new Weasley.'

George gaped at him and sputtered back, 'I don't think Angelina and I are quite ready for—'

'No, that's not what I meant! And you call me a troll? I meant I could come work with you.'

'You—you'd want to do that?'

'If it's between making your products and cleaning up their messes, I know which I'd prefer.'

'You'd be throwing away your career—I couldn't ask you to—Hermione would never—'

Ron interrupted his babbling. 'How about a towel that makes your hair disappear?'

George quieted at once, a grin slowly growing on his face. 'And appear growing on your chin as a beard?'

'No, it replaces your girlfriend's head of hair!'

'Oh! A set of matching towels for a couple that swaps their hair back and forth! What a wedding gift that would make!'

Outside, Angelina and Katie were eavesdropping, reduced to fits of silent giggles by the brothers' excited back-and-forth.

When Angelina managed to calm herself, she felt her heart swell with pride at her partner's renewed vigour. 'I was worried George had lost sight of what's important to him,' she said, 'but now, at the very least, it's like the blind leading the blind.'