WARNING: Proceed with caution...
It had been a few days since the kiss and neither of the two had yet to say anything to each other about it. Since that morning, there was nothing more than polite greetings, business talk, and small nods between the two. They were both too stubborn for their own good; neither of them wanted to be the first to acknowledge what had happened.
Clover had always been very good at watching, at observing everything going on around her. And while not exactly being on speaking terms with her boss , she realized that it didn't quite take a genius to see that George kept most of his frustrations to himself. His problems were like building blocks being stacked messily on top of each other; the more there were, the more unstable the stack became. It began with Angelina leaving, then his fight with Ginny, followed by the kiss with Clover, and by now George looked as if he were just about ready to come crashing down.
It was an hour before closing time on a Friday evening, and George was crankily refilling the shelves with boxes of Weasleys' Wildfire Whiz-bangs. His eyebrows were furrowed and his lips gave way to a frustrated huff every few seconds. He looked tired and lost and angry, just holding onto the fact that there was only one hour left until he could escape from everything and everyone. All the while, Clover and Lee were thinking the same thing from different places in the shop.
As Lee was balancing 10 Skiving Snack Boxes in his arms, trying to magically levitate them neatly in their place on a higher shelf, Clover was left in charge of the register for the time being. She had done it many times before, however, she was still fairly new at it. So, it was no surprise that the blonde girl took a little longer to figure everything out than Lee or George would've done.
The man across the counter from her was impatiently waiting for her to give him his change, but Clover couldn't quite figure out how to open the cash compartment.
"Maybe you could ask one of them to help?" The older man suggested as he crossed his arms over his chest and nodded his head towards both of Clover's bosses.
Stubbornly, Clover held back a glare and strung out a fake customer-pleasing smile, "It's alright, I'll figure it out. You just have to give me a moment."
"I've given you plenty of moments," he spoke under his breath and rolled his eyes while calling over to George, "Mr. Weasley, surely you can do something about this, yes?"
George heard his name and snapped his head over towards the commotion, immediately noticing Clover glaring down the customer in front of her and tightening her hold on the counter.
"There is nothing to do, sir," she once again shot a tight, fake smile and looked over at George, "I can figure it out. I just need another second."
"I've been here for 10 minutes already!" He shouted, throwing his hands in the air dramatically.
"What's got your knickers in such a twist that you can't wait one more minute?!" Clover defensively shot back, opening her mouth again to speak, "I pity your-,"
Annoyed at being interrupted by petty banter, George put down his boxes and stomped over to the register.
"That's enough," he huffed out, walking over to where Clover was standing and looking at her, "Why didn't you just ask for help?"
She looked at up him incredulously, as if the answer was obvious. "I can't exactly ask for help when I'm not on speaking terms with my boss, can I?"
George's face froze with hesitation before shifting his eyes away from Clover almost instantly. His hands went to open the register and pull out the exact change the man in front of them was due. Before giving over the money he looked back over at Clover, and spoke forcefully, "We are on speaking terms."
"Right," she sarcastically laughed while stubbornly taking the money from his hands, shoving it in the customer's, and glaring back at George, "Just not about how you kissed me, yeah?"
Clover didn't know whose jaw dropped quicker, the customer's or George's. His eyes pointedly avoided hers and his face paled slightly, the only color evident in his expression was the red tint staining his cheeks. Not even a second later, he looked over at the customer and ignored the words that fell from Clover's mouth, "Have a good day."
Eyeing both Clover and George peculiarly, the man awkwardly made his way out of the shop. And with every last drop of stubbornness in her, Clover turned her back to George and walked over to the pile of Weasleys' Wildfire Whiz-bangs that had neglected to be finished getting stacked. She crossed her arms over her chest and began to angrily shove the boxes into the shelf in front of her.
It was immature the way he was acting; George knew that. He knew that the second his lips pressed against hers he should have apologized for what he did, how he did it, and why he did it. But as soon as their faces parted, he physically couldn't get those words, or any words for that matter, out of his mouth. George was at a complete lost for words. Everything had stopped moving and breathing and thinking and being. The only thing going through his head was that he was kissing lips that had never talked to Fred, he was wrapping his hands around a body that Fred had never touched. She wasn't like Angelina. Clover was his, the most selfish part of his brain told him. And, that's exactly why he stormed away from her that morning. Because it was only meant to be a destructive, mind-distracting kiss; he couldn't let it be more.
But as the days passed, his initial panic morphed into anger. He couldn't believe he had let Fred slip from his mind. He couldn't believe he let a simple kiss take away the memories of his brother, even if it was only for a fleeting moment. How could she so unknowingly take away everything from him? Once again the most selfish part of his brain came to the forefront; this is why he needed Angelina. As long as he had her, he never had to worry about Fred disappearing. George didn't think he could handle losing him mentally as well as physically, and he certainly wouldn't let Clover do that to him.
"They're crooked," he grumbled just loud enough so the blonde would hear him.
She turned around and narrowed her eyes at him, both of them staring at each other angrily. Keeping her eyes locked on George, Clover abruptly picked up another box and messily threw it towards stack, "If you don't like the way I do it, then do it your-
In the midst of glaring at each other, neither Clover nor George realized that the blonde girl had accidentally thrown the box directly towards the prototype on display. It had fallen to the ground, cutting her sentence off with a loud pop and an explosion of color.
That's all it took to set her off. A simple explosion of red and white sparked all around the shop, knocking over the rest of the Whiz-bangs while doing so. Pops and snaps and sparks were now shooting all around Clover, and boxes that were neatly stacked on the shelf above her rained down on top of her head.
Clover knew they were only fireworks, but her brain refused to acknowledge that. Instead of sparks, she saw spells being shot out. Instead of hearing an explosion of color, she heard the explosion of a wall. Instead of feeling boxes fall on her head, Clover felt like she was being buried alive by rubble.
Her hands shakily slapped themselves over her ears and she shut her widened eyes in hopes of grounding herself. But there was no stopping the panic and fear coursing through her body. Her breathing quickened to the point where she felt as if she was holding her breath. But she didn't care. All she knew was that the wall was coming down, the war was crashing around her. Linny...
She was on the floor now, her head squeezed in between her hands that were resting on her knees. Her body was shaking uncontrollably, trembling at the thought of reliving the worst day of her life. The war...the wall...Linny...
A sob, or possibly a scream, left her lips as she rocked back in forth. Images of spells and blood and death and a small, blonde girl who was too young to be fighting ranged through her brain. It was the war all over again, Linny was dead. I couldn't save you, I'm sorry...
But suddenly, arms were thrown around her body. Through all the chaos there was warmth and a muffled voice calling out to her. She couldn't breathe and needed space. Clover tried shaking the arms off of her, but they only held on tighter. Her eyes were still squeezed shut as the voice became more clear in her head.
"Fuck, Clover. Breathe, breathe, shit. Lee, get everyone bloody out of here."
She shook her head, desperately trying to get the voice to go away. There was a war going on, there was no time for talking. But then, her face was held so tightly and a warmth spread over her forehead. Someone was there. There...here...work...the shop...
"Alright, it's alright. Listen to my voice, just try to listen. I'm here-shit. I-It's George, yeah? I'm right here and so are you. We're in the joke shop. You're okay, I promise. I've got you."
Clover felt like she was no longer holding in her breath and her hands shakily slid off of her ears. Immediately, a set of fingers intertwined with both of hers. The joke shop...George...
"Breathe, breathe, breathe. It's okay. S'alright. The shop is empty now. It's just me and you."
Without letting go of her hands, a matching set of arms wrapped around her body and held her close. There was a thumping noise that she immediately focused on, her breath matching the steady pace of the sound. Slowly, everything began coming back to her. But when reality set in, it made her body shake even more. Her eyes opened and stared off into space as he held her trembling body in his arms, having absolutely no intention of letting her go.
It was minutes later when she peeled her body off of his and stood up from the ground. With no words being said, she quickly began making her way towards the front door. It was bad enough he saw her like this, Clover couldn't deal with the aftermath. She wanted to slip out quickly and quietly, not to embarrass herself anymore. But then she heard her name.
"Clover."
It was soft and delicate the way he said it. She couldn't just leave without acknowledging it. And so, she stopped just as she reached the door and slowly turned around to face the boy who was still sitting on the floor.
Soft and worried brown eyes locked onto numb blue ones, and George finally saw something in Clover he had never seen before. George saw himself. A broken and shattered shell of someone who has been beaten down and depleted. Another example of what or, in this case, who the war left behind.
And suddenly, George knew more about Clover than he ever had. She was him, he was her. One last thought popped into his head as she watched her run out of the shop: He hasn't even figured out the outline of the puzzle that is Clover.
Clover ran, she ran as fast as she could until she was seated at the Riot bar top. Hours and a few too many shots of firewhiskey later, Babs, who just so happened to be on shift at the moment, was slapping a large cup of water in front of Clover.
"I'm cutting you off," he pointed at her knowingly, wiping her chin with a towelette and pushing the cups towards her, "Just because today has been bollocks doesn't mean you can drown yourself in bloody alcohol."
Naturally, Clover had told him everything as soon as she walked in and saw him behind the bar.
"You can't stop me," she stuck her tongue out and grabbed a pint of amber lager from the person sitting next to her. Clover raised the cup to her lips, ignoring the protest from the person it had originally belonged to. But before the liquid stung down her throat, the pint had been taken directly from her hands.
"Two against one, blondie," his familiar voice was accompanied by an apologetic smile, "You're done for the night."
If she didn't have a few rounds of liquid courage swimming through her body, Clover would have looked away in shame. But instead, she found herself answering him with more confidence she would have had on a good day.
"You can't tell me what to do," she crossed her arms and defiantly stared at him, "I'm going to drink my problems away, go home with a handsome bloke, and pretend like today never happened."
He chuckled out slowly and leaned into her, "You're coming home with me tonight."
Clover ignored the flushing of her cheeks and furrowed her brows, "Why would I do that?"
"I want to talk to you," he face returned to a serious, genuine expression as he continued from next to her, "About today, about the kiss..."
Clover's drunken mind flashed back to both events, and ultimately decided that avoiding them would be her best option for the night, "I don't want to talk."
"Fine, but you're not going home with a-another bloke like this. You're bloody wasted," he concluded, taking a sip of the drink that was previously in her hand, "Let me take you home."
She immediately shook her head in denial, not wanting to admit that she has been staying with his family for the past week or two. As Molly told her when she moved in, what George doesn't know won't hurt him.
"I don't want to go home. I already told you, you can't tell me what to do," she glared at him, hoping he didn't ask her to elaborate on where exactly home is for her. She wouldn't have an answer.
"He can't, but as your best friend, I can," Babs interrupted and playfully whipped Clover with his towel. He looked over at George sternly and pointed, "Let her crash with you tonight, make sure she's safe and drinks water. No funny business."
The last thing Clover saw before being apparated out of the pub was a small, warm smile playing on George's lips. And the next thing she knew, she was standing in the middle of George's flat being forced to down a sobering potion.
A groan escaped her lips as she thought, this is going to be a long night...
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AUTHORS NOTE:
Hehehe I wonder what's gonna happen next;););) STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT✨✨✨
Also just saying, the characters in this story are not just going to quickly fall in love. Just like I said in Losing Game, people don't just realistically fall in love and stay in love that quickly. It's going to take a lot of time and overcoming obstacles, especially when dealing with the aftermath of death. So this will be a slow burn, but I promise it'll have a happier ending;)