OK guys, hard truth time. I have let you down and I'm sorry. I have neglected to update ALFEP in what seems like a rude amount of time, partially because I have been undergoing recruitment for a new job which has taken me out of action for near enough six months, and partially (here comes the kicker) because with the last chapter, I sort of painted myself into a corner with the ending and although I knew where I wanted to go next, I had no idea how to get there from where I'd left it. I still don't. I currently have two versions of the beginning of the next chapter sitting in another word document and even though I'm writing this as an introduction to what I hope will be a chapter I'm posting soon, I still don't know which one I'll use (or if I'll just trash it and write a new one which I hate doing).

So please, accept whatever comes next as my humble offering and apology for leaving you all hanging so damn long. Those who know the story, thanks for sticking with me. Those who are new to ALFEP, we are delighted to have you.

Just don't expect regular updates :-P

Chapter Twenty-Three - Departure

George risked a glance across the cab at Alice. She was staring out of the window as the city whirled past them, an inscrutable expression on her face. Occasionally, she would look over, smiling shyly when their gazes met before quickly turning away once more.

Neither of them had spoken since the hotel, the growing tension between them electrifying, seeping into George's bones and becoming as essential as the air he breathed. The atmosphere had altered irrevocably - a man and a woman, in a cab at the end of an evening, racing through the freezing London night. George wanted to reach out to Alice, to take her hand and pull her across the back seat into his arms, but could tell that this would start something, something he knew without a doubt that he wanted, but equally something he wished to delay in favour of the anticipatory energy that was coursing through him like a fever.

For George, Alice had come to represent a reawakening of sorts. Without intending to, she made him feel excited to be alive again. When he had discovered that she wasn't a muggle, he thought that he would be dismayed by the realisation that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't outrun the wizarding world. Instead, her presence in his life and the ensuing madness it had caused only served to remind him of everything that had, once upon a time, gotten him out of bed in the morning.

Alice had happened upon him at a point when he felt as though his only recourse from grief was to erase himself from his own life. He had gravitated toward her sweet ways, like a moth to a flame. She had given him somewhere safe to begin to heal without suffocating him with her sympathy. She had made him laugh for the first time in years. She had offered him comradeship despite having her own problems. He had liked her (more than liked her) long before he had known she was an obscurial. She had invited upon him more excitement in the last few months than anyone (with the exception of Fred) had managed to do so in his entire life.

Alice Clark had brought him chaos.

And George had forgotten how much he loved chaos.

Her prolonged silence across from him in the cab however, was the other thing that was stopping him. George began at the back of his mind to entertain the idea that perhaps now, in the quiet and calm of the almost oppressively warm taxi, Alice had begun to regret the decision she had made while standing in the rain amongst the other party guests in the wake of a traumatic evening. Was she even now trying to think of a way to politely backtrack, to tell him that she'd really rather just be friends?

George felt a clench of nervousness at how very real this possibility suddenly seemed. Of course, he realised, it was only natural that she would regret an innocent flirtation with someone as broken as he.

Or was it worse than that - had he mistaken her simple kindness, her affectionate way with him, for attraction all along? George felt his heart sink as he realised that this could easily be true. Would things be forever awkward between them now? Was what he'd initially judged as romantic energy between them when they'd gotten into the cab, in fact a brittle tension tinged with disappointment and an imminent embarrassing conversation? She had after all, merely requested that he 'take her home'. This was not a definitive invitation and he was certainly not the sort of slimy bastard who might pretend that it was.

But, a small cruel voice at the back of his head whispered, he was the sort of slimy bastard who was withholding from Alice the information that she was an obscurial. Not only that, but he had not yet disclosed to her his discovery that morning that her father had been none other than Evan Rosier, prominent Death Eater and one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. George felt a wave of guilt crash over him as he realised that even if she did return his feelings, he could not in good conscience pretend that he had no idea of her true heritage. It would be dishonest to start a relationship or even spend the night together under such a pretence, wouldn't it?

And yet… telling her would destroy the life she had so bravely and cheerfully built for herself. She had looked at him with such wonderment when he told her that he thought she was a witch. Would she feel the same when she discovered that she was in fact an unregulated and unstable magical entity that the Ministry would be only too pleased to experiment on for the rest of her natural life?

She might be afraid. She might ask him to leave. He might never see her again.

Or if by some miracle the Ministry chose to disregard her status as an Obscurial, her conspicuous family tree would draw attention from all corners of the wizarding world. She would be ostracised by the snooty purebloods as a half-breed, and be seen as having unsavoury connections by everyone else. George thought fleetingly of Sirius, whose only saving grace from being tainted by association with his pureblood enthusiast family had been his fortunate friendships with James Potter and Remus Lupin. Would he ever be able to convince Alice that not everyone would judge her by her relatives? He didn't care.

But would that be enough? This was after all, the very thing that had been on his mind ever since the sharpest of his grief had faded to a dull ache. Would George Weasley alone, ever be enough?

By the time the taxi came to a halt in front of their building, George had stumbled through a myriad of emotions, oscillating wildly between fervent and besotted hope each time Alice's soft gaze would land on him from across the back seat, to despair and humiliation as he plunged back into the depths of self-doubt when she looked away once more. He alighted from the taxi first, turning back to offer Alice a gentlemanly hand but found that she had exited through the opposite door and was already at his side. The taxi drove off, leaving them standing in nervous silence on the pavement.

It seemed to take an age for them to walk up the front steps. George hung back a little, giving Alice some space to search in her ridiculously tiny handbag for the key. She opened the door with a gentle click, and paused in the doorway, looking back over her shoulder as though to confirm he was still there. George hovered, unsure of himself. Alice gave him a concerned look.

"George?" The first word she had spoken since they had stood in front of the hotel. Her voice was quiet, but it pierced the silence like a knife.

George braced himself. This was it. She was going to tell him that maybe they had moved too fast, that perhaps this was a bad idea. He cleared his throat, awaiting the awkwardness that would inevitably descend between them, his gaze trained studiously on his shoes.

"I just wanted to say that you don't have to - I mean, not if you don't want…" George looked up to see Alice fiddling with her tiny handbag, her brow furrowed "I just meant that - if you wanted to…" She continued, her voice a little too bright and nervous, starting new sentences before finishing old ones "But it's obviously completely fine if you don't. We'll just pretend that I never said anything ..."

George stared at her for a moment, struggling to follow her disjointed train of thought before the penny dropped. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish a few times before finding the words.

"You… think that I don't want to-" he grasped around for a delicate way to put it "- go to bed with you." He finished lamely, cringing inwardly at his awkward wording. Alice's eyes flashed up to meet his before she cast them back down in embarrassment.

"You just… didn't seem to want to be near to me in the taxi," she mumbled softly "I thought I must have gotten it wrong. I wanted you to know it was alright if you'd changed your mind."

George felt an ache in his chest as he saw his own fear of rejection reflected back in Alice. He realised somewhat guiltily that she too had suffered the cruelty of others and needed to be reminded of how wonderful she was, how special. He knew that it would be despicable to embark on a relationship with her without being completely honest, but at the same time knew that revealing her magical pathology to her would put her on a path that would eventually tear her away from him. George felt a selfish urge rise within him to reach out and cling on to the only thing that had brought light into his world since Fred died.

"I haven't changed my mind." He said, quietly but firmly. He took a step toward Alice, so that they were now only a few inches apart.

"I haven't." He repeated, softer now. Alice raised her gaze to his. She bit her lip and George felt a small shiver of anticipation run down his spine.

"I wanted to kiss you in the taxi. Before that, even. Long before that." They were standing so close now. George inhaled deeply and tried to savour the smell of her perfume mingling with the freezing night air. He reached up and brushed a loose lock of hair back from her forehead, marvelling at the feeling of the silken strands against his fingers. Feeling brave, he slipped his free arm around her waist and closed the gap between their bodies, pulling her flush against him. Despite the lateness of the hour and the dim lighting, everything seemed clear, sharp. In focus.

Alice leaned into his touch as she had done back at the hotel, sighing softly as he tenderly cupped her cheek and angled her lips toward his-

A flurry of movement in his peripheral vision jerked George back to reality. He froze, still holding Alice tight against him. She had shut her eyes in anticipation of a kiss and when it became clear this was not happening opened them again, a mixture of confusion and concern surfacing on her features

"George, what is it?" When he didn't reply she turned, following the line of his gaze. Together they squinted into the dark cavern of the entrance hall. For a long, tense moment nothing happened. Just as George began to congratulate himself on needlessly ruining yet another opportunity to kiss Alice, he saw it again. This time, it was accompanied by a decidedly canine whimper.

"Driscoll?" He called tentatively. He was rewarded with another whimper.

George felt the hairs on the back of his neck go up. Something was wrong. He turned back to Alice.

"Stay behind me," he said, his voice low and urgent "Within an arm's reach at all times, d'you understand?"

Alice nodded silently, her eyes now as wide as dinner plates. George reached into his jacket and drew his wand, holding it up in the darkness of the hallway.

"Lumos."

Arlene's front door was at the far end of the hallway and hidden from view in a small alcove around a corner. George cast his gaze over everything that the glow from his wand illuminated, looking for an indication of what might be wrong.

At first glance, there was nothing unusual about the ground floor entrance hallway. It seemed as peaceful and as undisturbed as when they had left hours before. It was only when a shimmer of golden light at the foot of the stairs caught George's eye that he knew unequivocally that something was very wrong.

He hadn't given much consideration to whether there could be a ward cast over the building before although now he thought about it, it made sense. Arlene had certainly never mentioned anything about casting any kind of protective charm, but George knew that he wasn't mistaken in what he was seeing. A broken Fidelius charm usually left no physical trace.

Unless it was extremely old.

George remembered Professor Flitwick saying something about the older the charm, the more ingrained it was in the fabric of the world and the more likely it was that once broken, the magic holding it together would be visible to the naked eye.

Right now, the entire building was soaked in residual magic that had been held inside a Fidelius charm for what looked like years, and George could think of only one person besides himself with a vested interest in protecting the occupant of the building.

Why hadn't Arlene told him that she had cast a protective ward? Surely, given the story she had told him earlier that day, it might have been useful to mention that the building had been placed under a powerful protection spell?

And more importantly, George thought with a grim turn of his stomach, how had it been broken? There was really only one way for a Fidelius charm to be broken in its entirety, and that was if the caster were to… he urged himself not to think about it.

He edged into the entrance hall and along the corridor keeping Alice close behind him, his free arm stretched out to shield her. As they slowly crept around the corner that led to Arlene's front door, the light from George's wand revealed a bedraggled and miserable looking Driscoll sitting in the doorway, seemingly waiting for them. As they approached, he stood and pattered through the door, which had been left worryingly ajar, stopping and turning back as if to ensure they were following him.

Given how dark it was and given that the natural state of Arlene's flat was similar to that of an antique shop following a typhoon, it was difficult to tell initially if there had been a struggle. As they stepped inside, George felt Alice slip her hand into his and squeeze it tightly. He squeezed back, praying that he was spectacularly wrong about what they would find as they followed Driscoll into the living room.

He was not wrong. George felt his heart sink as the extent of the damage became obvious. Behind him, he heard Alice gasp.

Arlene was slumped on the floor with her back to the bookcase. She looked as though she had simply sat down on the floor to rest. Her wand was on the floor beside her, snapped in two. Her eyes were open and glassy in death. Her head was bowed a little, her arms limp at her sides. There was a tray of tea upended on the floor a little way away. She had been caught by surprise.

Driscoll padded over to his owner and lay at her feet, whimpering. George felt his chest begin to constrict, his breathing becoming shallower and the fury rise within him as he realised that the last time he had been this close to a dead body, it had been his brother lying before him on the ground.

Arlene had been so kind to him. She had adopted him unquestioningly as another of her strays. She had helped him bring Alice back from the brink of infatuated madness. She had done her best to protect his landlady and had paid the ultimate price.

"George, what should we do? Should we call the police?" Alice's voice broke through his reverie, bringing him back to reality with a jolt. All of a sudden, his thoughts were a swirling cavalcade as a new sense of urgency gripped him. He needed to get Alice away to a safe place, somewhere she could be protected. He shook his head.

"Not the muggle Police, no." He said "This is something the Ministry of Magic will need to deal with. Alice, we need to go.."

Alice gestured to Arlene "We can't just leave her here all alone! It wouldn't be right…" she stooped to kneel next to Arlene's body, gently rearranging the skirt that had ridden up to show the older lady's knees and straightening the collar of her blouse.

Despite the fear and grief currently coursing through his veins, George couldn't help but feel a surge of warmth and admiration for the woman before him whose only concern in that moment was that the body of an elderly neighbour shouldn't be left alone. He gently pulled her back to a standing position and grabbed her shoulders, staring pleadingly into her eyes.

"I understand, but Alice listen to me. It's not safe for you here anymore. Whoever was here tonight is going to come back and they're going to be looking for you."

Alice stared at him "Why would they be looking for me? George, what's going on?"

"You should listen to him, Alice." A cool voice said smoothly from the kitchen doorway. They both jumped and George forced Alice back behind him as the lithe form - the real one - of Theodore Nott emerged from the shadows, smirking obnoxiously "He's known for a while now that there's something special about you, haven't you Weasel?"

"Nott," George said coldly, trying to maintain as much control as possible "Still trying to make yourself popular by doing the dirty work for the bigger kids, I see."

"You!" Behind him, he heard Alice gasp and sputter "You pretended to be Daniel! You drugged me, you disgusting little toad!"

Nott held up his hands in a gesture of mock defence "I confess Alice, I misrepresented myself to you in the beginning." He drew his arms wide and inclined his head graciously "Theodore Nott, at your service. You must allow me to tell you that you are considered as something of a legend among my associates. A Holy Grail, of sorts. Please understand that I have been part of the efforts to locate you for-" he paused to lick his lips "-quite some time."

"What are you talking about?" Alice gripped George's arm "George, what is he talking about?"

Nott continued, holding a hand up to George as if to say 'please, allow me' "I wouldn't depend on this blood traitor for a reliable account, Alice. No doubt he's already filled your head with lies about the greatest wizard of all time. And I am supremely convinced that as far as your legacy is concerned, he would happily keep you in the dark in order to further his own sordid ends. I, on the other hand," he placed a hand on his heart "Would be only too happy to see you fulfil your true potential."

That was enough for George, who snorted "Oh get over yourself, you unbearable little man. Do you honestly think you can break in, murder an innocent woman and still present yourself as one of the good guys?"

Nott's obsequious smile faltered and he aimed a sneer at George "That," He gestured at Arlene's prone body "Was not an innocent. She was part of the conspiracy to separate Alice from her true heritage and destiny. She deliberately thwarted efforts by my people to find her and bring her into the fold."

"George…" Alice repeated weakly "What is he saying? What legacy?"

"Alice, aren't you tired of being lied to?" Nott said imploringly "Aren't you tired of not knowing what a great man your father was? Aren't you tired of people like him-" he flung a hand in George's direction as thought swatting a fly "-Deciding what you should and shouldn't know about who you are?"

"Allice, don't listen to him." George said sharply, forgetting himself in the anger that had risen as Nott had waxed lyrical about a man who considered muggles as second class citizens "I don't know what his game is, but your father was not a great man-"

"-How do you know who my father was?" Alice grabbed George's arm, a look of dismayed betrayal in her eyes "How much have you been keeping from me?"

George realised too late the mistake he had made. Floundering, he tried to think of the words to explain "I found out this morning - Alice, please believe me…"

This was all the distraction Nott needed. Drawing his wand quickly from his jacket pocket, he opened his mouth to fire a curse in George's direction-

-Only to let out a howl of rage and pain as Driscoll leapt at him, sinking his teeth into the flesh of his leg. Nott dropped his wand in shock and it skittered across the floor. George pointed his wand at Nott "Petrificus Totalis!" He shouted. Nott froze, pitching forward onto the carpet facedown with a thump.

George turned back to Alice and was dismayed to see her already backing away from him "Alice please, you have to let me take you somewhere safe. Nott won't be working alone-"

"Why should I believe you?" Alice whispered, her eyes brimming with tears "You've been lying to me too. How long were you going to keep this from me?" her voice cracked "How can you expect me to trust you?"

"Alice-" George reached for her, his own eyes stinging. She dodged his grasp, backing up against the bookcase, her hands gripping the edges of the shelves in fright. George felt his heart sinking. Everything he had been afraid of was happening right now.

"Who was my father?" Her tone was accusatory, the earlier affection in her expression gone, most likely forever.

George felt a presence at his knee and without thinking, stooped to pick up Driscoll. The dog had probably saved their lives, he deserved more than being left to fend for himself when more Death Eaters arrived. Hefting the dog into his arms, he took another step toward Alice.

"I promise I'll tell you everything I know as soon as we get somewhere safe. I need you to take my hand." He reached his free hand out to her once more. She stared at it as though it were a poisonous snake.

"Alice please. We don't have much time." He hated how desperate he sounded. Everything in his being needed to make sure she was safe.

He hadn't been able to save his own brother, and the years since Fred's death had been a miserable half-life for him. Now, the one person that he had met who had sparked any kind of joy in his soul was shrinking away from him. As though he would ever be able to harm a hair on her head. George realised in that moment what a fool he had become for her. That he would do anything to see her safe, including give up his own life.

"Do you remember what I said to you?" he said imploringly "That I would never forgive myself if you got hurt?"

She stared up at him with her wide doe eyes, full of fear and confusion. George felt his heart ache. That was his doing. She was afraid because of him. Alice nodded.

"I remember." She whispered. George leapt on this remaining morsel of trust, clinging to it.

"If you believe nothing else," he begged, his voice ragged "Believe that I would never see harm come to you for as long as I live." he extended his outstretched hand toward her once again "Now take my hand."

The seconds between Alice taking his hand while George debated inwardly whether to surge forward and simply grab her were among the longest in his life, and as he gripped her hand tightly in his and apparated all three of them away into the night, George felt sure that he heard the accompanying pop of another witch or wizard appearing in Arlene's living room in the split second that they were leaving it.

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