The First Year

Made To Be Broken

George pointed his wand at a fanciful butterfly-shaped pendant. 'I hope this is the right combination of spells,' he said, cocking an eyebrow at a small pile of melted pewter pendants. 'Here goes nothing.' He closed his eyes and muttered a series of charms, then waited, holding his breath. When nothing happened, he cracked one eye open and stared at the small pendant. It still looked the same.

That is, until he picked it up. It slowly turned a deep red. George's hand closed around the butterfly and he snatched up the chart Ron had found in a shop in some dive in London. 'Anxious,' he murmured. 'Yeah, that about sums it up...'

'Well?' Ron asked curiously, poking his head through the curtains.

'It works.'

Ron held out a hand and George tipped the butterfly into his brother's palm. They both watched fascinated as it slowly faded back to its normal dull silvery hue, then brightened to the yellow-green of early spring. 'Blimey,' Ron breathed. 'It works is an understatement.'

'According to this rubbish, it means you're hopeful,' George supplied.

'How does it work?'

George scribbled a few things in his notebook. 'A charm to measure temperature, one to measure the pulse rate, and finally, one that changes colors according to the temperature. That's the complicated one.'

'How long does the charm last?' Ron wondered.

'Couple months, I guess,' George mused.

'Long enough for them to be wildly popular, cause lots of fights at school, then fade mercifully away into memory,' Ron pronounced.

George snorted. 'If you'd had something like this in your sixth year, you'd have known better than to get involved with that one girl you were snogging at all hours. Or at least she would have known you weren't really into it and broken things off before they got nasty,' he told Ron loftily.

'So where are we getting the trinkets to charm, then?' Ron asked, trying to deflect attention from his past foibles.

'Madam Malkin. She's got loads of stuff like this that doesn't move very fast. So she agreed to sell it to us at cost.'

'Is it just things like pendants, or does she have other things?' Ron poked through a box on the table next to George.

'Rings and earrings mostly.' George closed the notebook and tossed it on a shelf. 'Things cleaned up in the front?'

'Yeah. David and Sasha have gone home, and the front's been restocked, dusted, swept, and ready to open tomorrow.'

'Lovely,' George murmured. He reached into the open box and pulled out a handful of various trinkets. 'Look, tell Mum I'll be here late. I want to have enough of these mood thingies done before we open tomorrow so you can get the window display done.'

'I'll stay. What are the incantations?' Ron pulled his wand from his pocket.

'No. You go ahead and go home. I kind of want to be alone just now.'

Inexplicably stung, Ron pushed his wand back into his pocket. 'Yeah, all right.'

George heard the tone and glanced up from where he sorted the trinkets into pendants, earrings, and rings. 'It's got nothing to do with you,' he said quietly. 'I just don't want to be around people right now.'

'Are you all right?' Ron asked worriedly. 'You've been a bit off-color for a month now.' Ron gazed contemplatively at George, then amended, 'Well, a bit more off-color than usual.'

'I'm fine,' George murmured.

Ron frowned a little, but hung his robes on the hook by the door. 'Right. Well, I'll see you at home, then.'