For althea5000.
Warning: incest.
Misdirect
It's past three the morning when George crashes into Wizarding Wheezes. He swears blurrily as he trips over his own large feet grown inconviently clumsy, stumbling and fumbling up the stairs to the bedroom door.
Which is, much to his annoyance, locked.
Next day George wakes far too early on the downstairs couch with a cricked neck and a thudding hangover. Through the pounding in his head he slowly becomes aware of a *crunch crunch crunch* and twists around in the tangle of blanket to see Angelina Johnson in one of his old shirts, her feet bare, leaning over the kitchen sink as she spoons up a bowl of cereal.
"Hello," she says around a mouthful of milk and bran. She grins sympathetically. "How are you feeling?"
George groans weakly. "Like a small troll has taken up residence in my innards. A troll with a hammer."
She's in the middle of mixing him up what she says is a surefire cure - "three generations will swear by this one" - when Fred clatters down the stairs, humming a jaunty tune.
"Top of the morning, my dears," he sings with a bad Irish accent, and grabs Angelina around the waist, gives her a peck on the cheek.
Angelina cracks an egg into a bowl and laughs. She holds it up for both of them to see, double yolks, before she mixes it into the brew.
George gulps it down while she's leaving, and through the egg-and-pepper smeared glass watches her hug Fred goodbye. When the door is safely closed, he raises his voice to ask. "This going to happen often, is it?"
Fred plunks himself down on the couch beside him, forces him to move his legs out of the way. "Is what?" he says innocently.
"Me sleeping on the couch." George kicks his brother none too gently in the side.
"What's wrong?" Fred grins, bats his foot away. "Are you jealous?"
"Jealous of sleeping in a bed, yes. I know the rent's cheap but why couldn't we have got somewhere bigger? With two bedrooms?"
Which isn't fair, and they both know it.
Yes, there's only one room upstairs, half packed in by boxes of gadgets and gizmos that won't fit in the storeroom. Boxes, and two mattresses, and a view over the roofs of Diagon Alley. But they'd both agreed. 'Perfect', they'd echoed, and signed on the dotted line.
Fred snorts. "Oh, stop your moaning. If it's that uncomfortable you can sleep with us next time."
He pauses, thinks on what he's just said. George is not surprised to see the tips of Fred's ears turning a lovely cherry red - he can feel his own tingling gently.
Fred clears his throat loudly and picks up the newspaper. "So how about those Chudley Cannons?"
It's not so easy for George, who chews over the words without satisfaction.
He remembers the night of the Yule Ball, in their sixth year, how Fred described to him afterwards in unembarrassed detail the frenzied ten minutes he spent snogging Angelina in the gardens. Each sloppy kiss and eager fumble, recounted enough times for George to feel as though he'd been there himself.
It wouldn't take much to prompt Fred to do the same now, to fill in the blanks between the time he left the pub with one arm slung around Angelina's waist and George rattling at the bedroom door.
This time George doesn't ask, and Fred doesn't offer, and the next day is Monday. Business is booming and during the week they're almost too busy to eat. As the week passes George almost convinces himself that he's not even thinking about it.
But come Friday morning, while Fred is out of the store, George grabs a quill and dashes off a note. The words come easily and the signature almost as quickly; he writes on the envelope 'Angelina Johnson' and owls it away before he loses his nerve.
Funny, to be nervous, after a lifetime of pranking. Just a joke, he tells himself. And tries to ignore the flip-flops in his stomach.
He doesn't have to wait long for a reply. It's his own note, mailed back to him, and all she's scribbled is 'yes, see you there' and her name in the margin beside the pub and time he's suggested. So. No backing out now.
After they close up shop, George dresses with slightly more than usual care. Fred's already out the door, so he takes advantage of his twin's absence to nab a striped scarf and a coat he's always fancied.
He doesn't bother looking in the mirror as he leaves. He knows who he looks like.
Even at seven on a Friday night Morrissey's Hat is relatively quiet: a guitarist strums in the corner to a noddingly appreciative few.
As George enters he thinks for a moment that it's his reflection, on the mirror behind the bar. The reflection steps forward, nods his head towards one of the booths. George follows.
"Pint for you," Fred says and pushes a glass across the table. "Angelina's overseas at the moment," he adds matter-of-factly. "Playing an away game in Belgium."
George folds his hands around the glass. Fred doesn't drop his gaze for a moment.
"The owl you sent wasn't authorised for international mail, you know. So it returned the letter." Fred smiles and George doesn't. "To the person who was supposed to have sent it."
George looks away, digging in his pockets for change. "For the pint," he says, though he hasn't touched a drop. He starts to leave.
"Why'd you do it?" Fred grabs him by the wrist, voice strained with the effort of keeping it quiet. "Just to see if you could? To see how far you'd get before she noticed, if she noticed? Because you thought it would be funny?"
George wrenches his wrist out of his twin's hand. He doesn't stay to hear any more.
It's late when Fred arrives back at the flat. George is already in bed, his mattress pushed to the far side of the room. He hears Fred trip up the stairs and struggle with the door for what seems like an age before he enters.
George lies still beneath his blanket, eyes closed, breathing in slow rhythms. But Fred is his twin and they have never been able to fool one another very well or very long.
He hears the dual thumps of Fred kicking off his shoes, the flapping sound of something like a coat being tossed down on the floor. Then Fred is on the mattress beside him, shaking him by the arm.
"Tell me, George. George? Why?" Fred is nothing if not persistent. He could go on all night if he doesn't get a reply. "It wasn't a joke, was it? You wanted to know what it was like. George?"
"Yes," George says because it's simpler to agree. There's no answer he can give that's wholly true and when Fred asks he doesn't know how to lie.
"What it was like with her?" Fred lies down beside him. "Or with me?"
George turns over and they face one another in the near-dark. He reaches out, brushes back the hair that falls over his brother's eyes.
"Like this," Fred says. "She kissed me like this," he whispers into George's mouth and the truth is, George realises, that they have never been able to fool one another at all.
By Rowan (winter_rowan@hotmail.com) September 2005
This story is not to be archived without permission.