Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.

The prompt chosen for this story is #15: Given her pick of jobs after the war, Hermione surprises everyone by using her inheritance (her newly restored parents have cut off all contact and given her money) to help George Weasley bring laughter back to the wizarding world. I have taken some creative license with this, so the story might not follow the prompt exactly, and for that, I apologise.

Many thanks to my beta for all of her help with this story.

The doorbell of the shop rang sharply as the last customer for the day passed through the door, leaving the remaining occupant in the room alone.

George Weasley sighed heavily, hauling his body, weary with exhaustion, off the stool behind the shop counter. He set about the task of closing up the shop for the night, casting a few cleansing charms and drawing the blinds on the front windows. When he was finished, he counted up the till for the day and put all of the takings into a money tin, placing the float for the next day in a safe beneath the bench. He secured everything, casting a few strong wards before leaving through the back door.

With the takings for the day tucked safely beneath his arm, George made his way towards Gringott's to bank the money and go home for the day. He left the money with the first goblin he saw upon entering, touching his wand to the depositing form and leaving as soon as he could. He hated going to Gringott's, but unfortunately for him, was unable to get out of performing the onerous task.

Once back on the street, he went to the nearest Apparation point and with a near-silent 'pop' disappeared from the spot and reappeared in his flat. He took off his dark purple robes, hanging them on one of the hooks by the front door. He felt his stomach rumble and vaguely recalled not having had the time to eat lunch during the day due to being too busy with the shop. Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes had been packed full of people all day until it was almost time for him to close up shop, and he and Fred had always agreed never to close the shop, even for lunch.

With another sigh, he went straight to the bathroom and got undressed, flicking his wand at the shower faucets and waiting until the water had adjusted itself to the perfect temperature. He stepped under the spray, allowing it to wash over him, soothing his sore muscles. He washed his hair and body, rinsing off before getting out and turning the water off. After casting a quick drying charm, he dressed in his pyjama bottoms and an old t-shirt before heading to the kitchen to fix himself something to eat.

Half an hour later, he sat at his kitchen table alone, eating a bowl of cereal after not being able to summon the energy to go to more effort.

As he ate, George flipped idly through his copy of the Daily Prophet, not really reading any of the articles, instead focussing on the animated photos. He closed the paper and pushed it, along with his empty bowl, to the side before getting up and going to the sitting room, flicking his wand to light a fire in the grate. The warm orange glow washed over the room, illuminating the photos sitting on the mantle. He felt his eyes begin to burn with unshed tears as the glanced over the photos of his family, more specifically, when he gazed upon the photo of him and his twin, Fred.

They two of them were standing with arms around each other's shoulders, grinning and waving at him from the frame as they stood in front of their shop.

The photo had been taken the day of their shop's grand opening, and he could remember just how exhilarated and happy the two of them had been. It was their brainchild, built together from all of the grand ideas they had had in their minds – funded by a generous donation by Harry Potter. Even their mother, who had disapproved of their leaving Hogwarts before graduating, had been so proud and happy for them that day.

And now, he was all alone, nurturing the shop, spending day after day working until he wanted to pass out before going to bed, sleeping and then waking up to lather, rinse and repeat the entire process. He was like one of those Muggle robots – set on an automatic function, each day passing as if nothing was different or special. Everything had lost its brightness and colour for him. Everything was grey. He missed his other half in a bad way, so much that sometimes he found it hard to drag himself out of bed in the morning and go to work.

He felt the tears stinging his eyes and choked them back forcefully. He wondered when it would cease to hurt so much. He wondered if there would ever be a time when he would genuinely smile and laugh instead of just go through the motions for the sake of appearances. George reached up to touch the obsidian stone that sat beside the frame, picking it up and rolling it between his fingers. A moment later, the shimmering incorporation of his twin stood before him with a look of disappointment in his haunted eyes.

George reached out to try and touch him, as he always did to remind himself that the image was not actually his brother, his hand falling straight through him as though he were a projection. Fred clucked and shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes in the way it always had.

'Georgie, you know you'll need to stop doing this to yourself one day,' Fred's voice said. 'You'll die miserable and alone in this dingy old flat if you don't chuck this silly rock away and start living. No bird is ever going to want a bloke that can't stop bloody crying.'

George held back a sob that tried to wrench free of his throat. 'Freddie, it's not as easy as you'd like to think,' he said, the tears beginning to stream from his eyes. 'Look at you. You're not even real…'

Fred's image shrugged at him. 'Real or not, I know what someone looks like when they've been holding onto something they ought to have let go of, and you are the very definition of it. Live a little, okay?'

'What do you expect me to do?' George asked.

Fred smiled. 'Do what you do best,' he replied. 'Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start inventing and creating again. Don't let our business go bust just because I'm not physically there beside you. I'll always be there for you anyhow, right there, in your heart. Live for both of us.'

George nodded and placed the stone back on the mantle, still crying softly. 'I'll do my best,' he said as the image of Fred faded away.

Swiping angrily at the tears that continued to escape his eyes, he walked back to the kitchen and cleared away his dirty bowl, tossing the newspaper into the bin.

He went straight to his bedroom after that, pulling down the covers and sliding between them. With a flick of his wand, he extinguished all of the lights in the flat, placing his wand on the nightstand beside the bed. Punching his pillow into shape, he laid his head down and closed his eyes, allowing sleep to claim him. Maybe, just maybe, the colours would come back one day.

George looked up when he heard the doorbell of the shop ring, signalling the entry of yet another customer.

The moment he had opened the doors for the day, people had swarmed inside the shop, filling it with laughter and merriment. He forced a smile to his face to greet the new entry, and it grew even wider when he saw that it was his older brother Charlie. Despite being over-tired, his surprise and elation kept the smile on his face as he walked over to his brother and instantly gave him a tight hug, slapping him on the back in a friendly manner.

'It's good to see you,' George said, leading his brother over to join him at the counter, summoning an extra stool over.

'It's great to see you, and the shop seems to be doing well still,' Charlie said with a robust grin. 'Mum says you haven't been going home as often lately.'

'I go to Sunday dinner,' he argued automatically.

He had been getting the same line from nearly all of his siblings, especially Ginny, who had even started sending over Harry to hound him into visiting with everyone more often. George had hoped that he would have been spared the same lecture from Charlie, but it seemed that everyone had been turned into his mother's owl, all telling him the same thing. The last thing he wanted was to go back to The Burrow all of the time and constantly be reminded of Fred every time he saw one of his siblings.

Charlie sighed, but nodded understandingly. 'I know I don't really have a lot of room to talk, seeing as I am hardly ever home to see mum and dad,' he said seriously. 'But I am still myself. You've changed ever since the war. I know loosing Fred was harder on you than everyone else, but you need to come back to us. You'll soon be working yourself to death.'

'Business has been busier without Fred here to help,' George said, his tone flat.

'Then hire someone to help you with the shop,' Charlie said simply. 'You're obviously trying to do more than you can handle, so you might as well give someone a job and take a load off your shoulders.'

George considered his brother's advice for a moment. Perhaps he was right. Maybe getting an assistant to watch the shop would be a good idea. It would, at the very least, free up some more of his time to work on a new line of products. Though all of the products he already sold were doing well, he would need to continually introduce new things to keep people interested. And it would also satisfy all of the nosy family members that seemed to just keep popping in on him to make sure he hadn't harmed himself or fallen off the face of the planet.

'I'll think about it,' he answered reluctantly.

Charlie smiled at that. 'Well, now we're starting to make some progress,' he said, clapping George on the shoulder. 'Put an ad in the paper and you'll be sure to find someone crazy enough to work here with you. And do it before you turn into a complete recluse.'

'I'll look into it,' George said a little curtly, running low on patience for that particular topic. 'Sorry. I am just a little tired. I don't mean to snap.'

Charlie shook his head. 'It's fine,' he said quietly. 'I know you're probably getting sick of everyone treating you like a child by this point.'

'Something like that,' George replied.

'Well look, I'll be here for a couple of weeks doing some guest lecturing at Oxford on Dragons while the regular lecturer is ill,' Charlie announced, getting up from the stool he had been occupying. 'I'm staying with mum and dad, so if you want to catch up again while I'm in town, just owl me or come by the house.'

George nodded. 'I'll be coming over for Sunday dinner at any rate, so you'll see me then if not before,' he replied.

Charlie gave him a smile and, with a friendly hug, left the shop. George decided to check on the rest of the shop and mingle with his patrons, showing some of the younger customers how to use the products. He returned to the front desk after a little while, taking care of the customers who had selected their purchases, and at midday, people began to make their way off to lunch, leaving him alone in the shop to tidy and restock once more.

When he was finished, he sat down behind the counter with a blank journal, willing himself to concentrate so he could begin coming up with some new products. After a while, he realised he was simply too tired to be productive. Grumbling under his breath, he realised that Charlie had definitely been right – he was going to have to hire an assistant. Instead of working on new products, he picked up his quill and summoned a piece of parchment to him to draft up an ad to send to the Daily Prophet.

After he closed up the shop for the day, he made his way to the post office and sent his owl off to the Prophet headquarters.

A soft 'pop' of Apparation sounded in the front hall, signalling the arrival of another visitor for dinner.

Hermione Granger wandered out of the kitchen in time to see George hanging up his robes on the hooks by the front door. She smiled, pleased to see that he had shown up for the Weasley family's Sunday dinner. Walking over to greet him, she put a hand on his shoulder, causing him to turn around and look at her. His smile didn't quite reach his eyes, but he put his arms around her in a hug, picking her up and spinning her around in the way he had taken to since knowing her.

'Hello, Granger,' he said teasingly, the sound of her surname on his lips making her smile.

'Hi George,' she replied as he set her back down on her feet. 'How has business been this week?'

'Busy as usual,' he answered as they two of them walked towards the kitchen again.

Hermione went straight to the stack of plates and cutlery on the bench, and together with George, took them to the dining room and started setting the table. Molly and Ginny came in soon after, carrying and levitating dishes of food along with them. She watched as the two other women hugged George before the rest of the family started trickling into the dining room, following the scent of dinner. Harry walked in, giving her a one-armed hug before joining Ginny on the other side of the table, leaving Hermione eventually seated between George and Ron.

Loud talking filled the room along with the clatter of cutlery on dishes. Hermione loved Sunday dinner at the Weasley residence – they were, after all, the only family that she had left, and she treasured their presence in her life. She listened as the people around her cheerfully got on with their meals, but no matter how much she tried, she couldn't help but feel a moment of sadness. Even with the Weasleys' support, the loss of her own parents had left something of a hole in her life.

After the defeat of the Dark Lord, Hermione had gone to her parents with a representative of the Department of Mysteries and retrieved the memories she had erased. What she had not expected was the complete distrust and rejection she had been met with from her parents when they discovered what she had done. Despite her desire being merely to protect them, they had been unable to forgive her for tampering with their memories. The last time she had seen them, they had bequeathed her the entirety of the trust fund they had been holding for her, leaving her with a rather generous sum of money with which she was funding her education and paying for her living expenses.

However, they had both expressed a desire to be removed from her life, and unable to say no, she agreed to leave them alone.

It had left her in almost unbearable emotion pain to begin with. She'd spent days on end in bed crying, refusing to eat and ignoring almost everyone. Not even Harry and Ron had been able to make her feel better. After a week, she had emerged from Ginny's room at the Burrow, appearing to all as though she had recovered from her parent's rejection. After three years, she had well and truly recuperated, but there were still moments when the pain of the memory hurt her more than others, and she would be transported into her memories to a time when she had gotten along with her mother and father.

'Hermione?' a voice asked from beside her, returning her from her thoughts.

She turned to look at George and forced a smile onto her face, picking up her fork and skewering some food. 'What's up?' she asked.

'Nothing,' he replied, shaking his head and chuckling. 'You looked a little distracted is all.'

'Just thinking,' she said, waving him off and popping a bite of food into her mouth. 'Nothing unusual, I assure you.'

George offered her a small smile, which, much to her surprise, appeared to be genuine. 'You think too much for your own good, Hermione,' he teased.

Hermione punched his arm gently and beamed at him. 'Speak for yourself, Mr Weasley,' she retorted, turning her attention back to her food.

Dinner continued, followed by dessert. Hermione listened in to conversations here and there, catching snippets of updates from the various Weasleys and their spouses. Hermione caught the end of a conversation between Molly and Ginny as they discussed her upcoming nuptials with Harry. She personally thought the two of them were rushing into marriage too young. They had their whole lives ahead of them, and Ginny was still in the middle of her apprenticeship at St. Mungo's in the Mediwitch School. Harry had only just been promoted to Auror from training six months beforehand. Neither had established themselves professionally for very long, and to Hermione, that was impractical.

As dinner began to wind down and Bill, Fleur, Percy and Penelope left for the evening, Hermione helped the two Weasley women with the clean-up effort. Ron and Harry sat in front of the fire, playing a game of chess whilst Arthur and Bill stood by the fireplace smoking pipes. She wandered back into the sitting room after Molly had shooed her from the kitchen, insisting that she'd helped too much already. George was nowhere to be seen, and she was worried for a moment that he had left without saying goodbye to everyone.

She nearly jumped when she felt a hand come down on her shoulder gently, and she spun around to find George standing behind her.

'I'm about to head off for the night, Hermione,' he said, smiling at her fondly. 'Thanks for being the only one here tonight that hasn't tried to nag me into being around more often.'

She chuckled softly at that. 'You're welcome,' she replied. 'Go on with you. I know how busy you are.'

He nodded and gave her a one-armed hug before waving at his brother and father by the fire and making his way to the front door. He took his robes and slung them on before Apparating away with a soft 'pop'. Hermione frowned as she stared at the spot he had occupied only moments ago. She knew that losing his twin had been extremely hard on George. She imagined it felt similar to her own loss. But these days George was always so subdued. His smiles never lit up the room like they used to; there was no laughter or taunting – no pranks.

She wondered if George would ever come back to their world and be himself again – smile and laugh like he used to. She shook her head. Thinking about it never really got her anywhere. She walked over to where Ron and Harry were playing chess and pulled up a seat to watch them. She hated wizard's chess. It was droll until the part where the pieces would attack one another, and then it turned barbaric.

'What was all that about?' Ron asked suddenly, startling her out of her thoughts.

She looked up at his face to see he was wearing a scowl. 'What do you mean?' she answered, confused.

'You and George, over at the door there,' he grunted in response. 'The two of you are seeming awfully chummy these days.'

Hermione shook her head and sighed in exasperation. Ron's jealously knew no bounds and even, regularly, extended to members of his family with whom Hermione got along with. She knew it had been a wise decision on her part to break up with Ron about a year after the war. They had been fighting constantly to begin with, and soon, even their sex life was beginning to turn to the mundane. Their relationship had felt like a chore to her, and everyone in his family had seen the imminent collapse before Ron even realised it was coming himself. He was still bitter about it and would constantly try and beg her to reconsider, even two years after their relationship had ended.

'Ronald, let me be clear once more,' she began, annoyance seeping into her tone. 'I am not having a secret affair with anyone in your family, nor anyone else. But even if I was, it would be none of your damn business.'

Ron's face turned red as he began to sputter incoherently. 'Well that's just beside the point, isn't it,' he argued.

'Ron, you are going to have to move on, sooner rather than later preferably,' she said firmly, a frown creasing her brow. 'Until you learn to accept that you and I will never be more than friends, I think we're going to have to stop seeing each other. Which will be a huge shame, as I will miss coming here to see the rest of your family every Sunday.'

'But Hermione,' he said, his tone going from angry to whiny.

'No buts, Ron,' she snapped. 'I'm tired of you acting as though you have a right to be jealous of me spending time with others. We are not a couple – haven't been for two years. There are loads of witches out there who would kill to date you. You're a keeper for a Quidditch team. Find someone who is actually interested in professional Quidditch, and stop harassing me.'

Ron had the decency to look chastened then. As she calmed down from her angry rant, she noticed that Harry looked decided uncomfortable sitting across from Ron, and that Arthur and Charlie had fled the room. She was rather grateful they had. It had come as a pleasant surprise to her that none of the Weasleys had minded when she had broken up with Ron – not even Molly, who had been looking forward to her possibly becoming an official member of the family. Ron, however, was obviously not of the same opinion.

'I'm sorry, Hermione,' Ron said finally, drawing her attention back to the conversation. 'It's just; you know I always had hoped we'd be together and get married one day. It's hard to get used to the fact that we won't.'

She reached over and patted his shoulder, feeling a little sorry for him. Ron was rather like a child sometimes, or a dog with a bone. He just had a hard time letting go once he had his mind set one something.

'It's okay that you feel that way, but honestly, Ronald, you need to go and meet someone else,' she said with a heavy sigh. 'I won't make you happy, and I know you won't be able to make me happy either.'

Harry chose that moment to pipe up. 'Hermione's right, Ron,' he said to the redhead across from him. 'You two aren't well-suited.'

'Yeah, I know,' Ron mumbled.

Hermione offered the two of them a small smile before she got up from her seat. It was time for her to leave – she had classes to go to in the morning, and she didn't want to be late. They both stood to see hug her, and she left with the wave, stopping by the kitchen briefly to bid farewell to Molly, Ginny, Arthur and Charlie before collecting her robes from the front door and Apparating. She reappeared in her London flat and hung her robes up by the door, heading straight to her study to organise her satchel and make sure all of her books were in it.

She was studying Arithmancy at the Wizarding University in Cambridge, and still had just under a year left until she would receive her Master's certificate. Her major project took up a great deal of her time, and because of it, she often found she had to place an undetectable extension charm on her bag so that she'd have enough room in it to carry her work around with her in case she had a thought during the day and would need to write it down in her notes.

After she was certain all was in order, she went to the bathroom, stripped and showered before drying and dressing herself for bed. Slipping under the covers, she placed her wand on the beside table and set herself an alarm with her Muggle alarm clock and laid back, closing her eyes.

She was asleep moments later, all thoughts of the events of the evening slowly drifting from her mind.

To be continued.