Author: Thevina
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: George/Remus
Summary: A few years post-Order of the Phoenix, Remus drops by Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes on Christmas Eve. Things between the two of them are never the same, and they are happier for it.
Author's Notes:This story was written for a Fred and George Ficathon hosted by the WeasleyWorship LJ community. It is set within the framework of my first story about Fred and George titled "Together, Alone" Not to SSP it, and if you don't wish to read it, here's a summary: The summer after Fred and George leave Hogwarts in their splashy fashion, their joke shop is raided by two Death Eaters and they are taken hostage. By chance, Fred is the one who is taken and tortured, and does not survive when they are liberated a few days later. The rest is per JKR within a R/S context. It's a few years post-OotP, Voldemort has been defeated; the War is over.
The opening quotation comes from the poem "Brother Fire" by Louis MacNeice.
Cartography of Fire
O delicate walker, babbler, dialectician Fire,
O enemy and image of ourselves
"Well." George shut the drawer to the till and looked dazedly around the empty shop. "I suppose that's it for this holiday. Thanks again, Zap, for all your help. Couldn't have survived the Christmas rush without you!"
Zapateous Zonko, youngest son of the former joke-shop owner, smiled in return.
"No worries, Mr. Weasley," he replied, tossing a stray Canary Creme into a plastic bin. "It brings back memories, y'know?"
"I do," George said, crossing his arms and leaning on the counter. "But for the love of Merlin, don't ever call me Mr. Weasley again. That's Dad. Arthur. Mi-ni-stry." He intoned every syllable, making his sole employee grin.
"Right. Sorry," Zap said, aiming his wand at a stand in the corner, bringing his hat to him, which he then nestled on his head. "George. Happy Christmas."
"Happy Christmas to you!" The redhead retrieved a few stray ton-tongue toffees and began juggling the lot. "Be sure to go by Gringott's before you go home; there's a bit something extra for you. It being the holidays and all."
Zap smiled all the wider, showing a few crooked teeth. "You're the best, George! All happy returns to your family from me, okay?"
George let the four candies drop to their nadir in his palm. "Of course," he replied. "Now go on. It's getting late."
The door opened, letting in a blast of cold air, then banged shut. George took a few moments to look around, evaluating the chaos. Shelves of skiving snackboxes and truth-telling taffies in complete disarray; some charmed miniature carpets circling the enchanted mirrors; and a half-imbibed cup of tea with legs making its way across the floor back to the kitchen. He sighed, thinking of what awaited him after he closed up shop.
Mum. Dad. Ginny with Neville, the Wonder Boy. Ron and Hermione. Percy. Charlie, if they were lucky. And the usual post-War eulogies for Bill and Fred. He fumbled at a cabinet where he had a "For Emergencies Only" bottle of Bitter Banshee, got it open, then began looking for an appropriate container for the somewhat ominously green beverage.
The bell hanging above the door chimed just as George had gotten comfortable in the one chair in the shop.
"Oh, bloody hell!" he swore under his breath. Before shouting out, "We're closed!" he spared a few seconds to tilt his head and see who it was shopping this late on Christmas Eve. He blinked a few times, took another swig of his drink and looked once again for good measure before disengaging himself from his chair.
"Professor Lupin!" he said, rounding the counter to shake hands with his former instructor. "What brings you here? Now?"
George stood back and ran his left hand through his hair.
"Shopping," Remus Lupin replied, looking apologetic. "I know it's late, and you were probably about to close, but the sign still said open�" his voice trailed off. "I need something for my first cousin, once removed. Around ten, I believe."
"No," George replied. "It's only seven-thirty."
"No," Lupin answered, smiling. "Ten. That's her age. Ten."
"Ah."
"Are you closed?" Lupin appeared as though he were going to leave. "The sign said�"
"We're open. I mean, I'm still open. No worries."
Lupin nodded, and George was struck by how little the man had changed from his year of teaching at Hogwarts. Disheveled, a bit nervous for someone who knew so much about the Dark Arts, and gracious to a fault. He smiled back.
"I'll help you find something."
They spent a good thirty minutes going through the store, looking at rainbow gobstoppers that caused the eater's skin to change colour with the candy; conniving knuts with repelling charms on them, making them impossible to be picked up; silencing suckers that rendered the recipient speechless. At least for a little while.
"I'm sorry about Fred," Lupin said, during a pause.
George shrugged in acquiescence. "Makes two of us," he acknowledged. "But you know about loss."
Lupin gazed keenly at him, as though he expected him to continue.
"Okay. So it's as though I'm an amputee. Or missing a tooth that'll never grow in, and all I can do is rub the spot, which only reminds me that it's not there."
George strode across the small shop to his abandoned cup of spirits, which he downed.
"Thank you for your sentiments. I do appreciate them, really. But Fred wouldn't have wanted anyone to be mopey about him."
The former Defense Against the Dark Arts professor glanced around the store again and settled on a fake lavender diary which squirted ink on anyone who tried to open it. "I think she'll like this," he said, retrieving one and bringing it to the counter. "Her older brother has been giving her grief, apparently." He fumbled in a pocket for the correct payment. "I'm sorry to have kept you. I'm sure that Molly is wondering where you are," he added.
"I'll go by my flat first," George admitted, taking the other man's coins and dropping them into the drawer. "What about you?" he asked suddenly, remembering a few Christmases back spent at 12 Grimmauld Place. He and Fred had pieced together the true nature of his relationship with Sirius Black during their seventh year, much to their astonishment. Sirius had been only the first of many casualties during the war with Voldemort, but George didn't want to dwell on it.
"Oh, I'll be at my house. Probably visit Harry, then walk around some of the monoliths at Kilmartin."
George looked at him, puzzled. "Kilmartin?"
"In Argyll. Near Oban. After� well, you know. After James and Lily were killed, I spent a few years working in a library in Muggle Glasgow. I heard about these ancient stones, laid out across several kilometers." His expression took on a wistful glow, and George was surprised at the change it made. Though he must have been in his early forties, he had a pleasant face. Handsome, even. And a very soothing voice. George shook himself out of the odd line of thought to listen to what Lupin was saying with such feeling.
"The Muggles have their own beliefs about the Neolithic cultures that made them, and how, but I have my own theories. The old standing stones are soothing, somehow. They're surrounded by farms and grazing sheep now. It's always very peaceful." Lupin looked down at his present and ran his thumbs over the wrapping, chuckling low in his throat. "I must be boring you. I'm sure that you wish you had closed up at least an hour ago!"
"No, it's alright." George shocked himself as he said, "Would you like some company when you go to the�" He struggled for the word Lupin had used. "Monoliths? A bloke needs a break from the family, as you probably remember."
Lupin focused his gaze on him and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"And it's not the same without Fred around. And Bill. Mum gets all weepy, and I never was any good at making her feel better. You should come over! They'd love to see you."
He walked around the counter to face Lupin, who smiled broadly.
"That would be marvellous! Thank you so much for the invitation. And I would be more than pleased to share the Kilmartin stones with someone else."
George watched as Lupin's gaze travelled down his body to his feet.
"I wouldn't advise wearing such extraordinary footwear, though. It can be a bit muddy."
George looked down. "Oh.'Course." He grinned. "I'm pretty skilled at most cleaning spells, but you're right. I'd hate to ruin these." He had on his favorite shoes, a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots in luminous grey. They were an extravagant memento for himself, purchased when he'd travelled to the States with Ron and the fledgling Quidditch team he was assistant coaching, the Green Knights of Glasgow.
He found himself staring at Lupin's gold-brown eyes. Had the man actually been sizing him up? Surely not. He stuck out his hand to shake Lupin's.
"Well, I'll see you tomorrow then, at the Burrow."
A surprisingly firm and warm grip held his for a moment.
"You have really become quite a success," Lupin said, taking an admiring look around the shop. "Maybe you'll be kind enough to tell me the inspiration for all of this!"
George began to feel embarrassed. "It's just a joke shop." He extracted his hand and turned to go back behind the counter. "It's not like the Daily Prophet is going to do a story on me because I'm the co-creator of the Puking Pastille." He took his wand from the side of the till, pointed it at the bottom drawer and uttered a complex locking spell.
"Perhaps they should," Lupin said, picking up the present. "Laughter is an extraordinarily powerful tool in wizardry. Disgracefully misunderstood."
George leaned back against the wall, scratching under his chin with his wand. "Never thought about that," he said. "Then again, Fred and I were not exactly Hogwarts' most model students."
"Well," Lupin said, tucking the package under his arm, a mischievous glint in his eye, "Neither was I. See you tomorrow."
The bell clanged again as the door opened, then slammed closed. George shook his head slowly as he raised his wand toward the door, flipped the "Open" sign to "You Must Be Joking," and cast another locking spell.
"Wait'll Fred hears about this!" he muttered to himself, striding to the back kitchen. After murmuring a hasty lumos, he yelled nox into the shop, then scooped some floo powder and tossed it into the small fireplace.
"The Cleansweep."
***
Moments later, he stumbled out of an even smaller fireplace into his flat. Fred, always in pursuit of the next play on words, had decided on the name for their connection to the floo network. Their living quarters, for the few months when they had both lived there, were always in a shambles, much like their room at the Burrow. Their shared affections for their beloved brooms, rescued in such a blaze of glory, provided the inspiration for the naming of their new mum-and-siblings-free home.
George dusted some soot off of his jumper and headed to the fridge to get a butterbeer. After popping off the top and taking a couple of swallows, he went back to his room. On one wall was an obligatory poster of the Green Knights, who all waved cheerfully at him as he turned on the light. He absentmindedly waved back, focused on what to pack for the next few days. En route to his closet he walked into a large potted plant, which hissed at him and snaked some nasty-looking tendrils toward his trousers.
"Piss off!" he said, glaring at the fuscia leaves, which retreated back toward the soil.
"Maybe if you watered it, it wouldn't be so cranky," came a voice from a portrait above his chest of drawers.
"Oh. And so when did you become the expert in herbology?" George retorted, turning on his heel to reply.
"I was the expert in herbology," Fred replied from the painting, then made a 'tsk-tsk'ing' sound. "Or have you already forgotten? They say the memory is the first thing to go."
"Right. I have no doubt I'm getting more daft by the day," George said amicably.
His mother, though she grumbled about it for weeks, had gone ahead and had the twins sit for a proper wizard's portrait, even though they hadn't technically graduated from Hogwarts. She had had portraits done for all of their brothers before them, and ever since Fred had been killed, George remained indebted to his mother for her grudging generosity, as it meant that he could at least still talk to his brother. Out of respect, or the sheer oddity of the situation, the George in the portrait was almost never there. George was not sure where he went, and he hadn't felt it appropriate to ask Fred, him being dead and all.
"You'll never guess who came by the shop tonight!" George said, crouching by the bed, looking underneath it for his trunk.
"Dunno. All of Hogsmeade?"
George snorted, pulled the trunk out and onto the bed, then threw back the lid. "That'd be rich, but no. Remus Lupin. D'you remember him?"
"Do I remember him?" Fred exclaimed. "I'm not the one with the piss-poor memory. Surely you don't think a chap would so easily forget finding out one of his former professors is buggering a bad-tempered, bad-smelling escapee from Azkaban?" He leaned against the inside of the frame, one foot perched on a chair, arms crossed on his chest.
"Well. When you put it that way�" George chuckled, waving his wand at a couple of collared shirts, three pair of corduroy slacks, and a dark evergreen set of dress robes which flew across the room and arranged themselves on the bottom of the trunk.
"You think he fancies you?" Fred leered from the portrait.
George whirled around. "Do I what?"
"Are you going deaf now, too?" Fred paced the few steps from one side of the frame to the other, juggling three coins and appearing very amused. "Seems to me that since that incident with that girl- oh, what was her name?"
"Thalia," George muttered, taking the few steps to go into the bathroom, evaluating what to take to his parents'.
"That's right. Thalia. Well, maybe girls just aren't your type!"
George stared at the bottle of Humperdinck's Hair Tonic, muddling through Fred's crass remark. It was true, neither of them had been especially focused on anything or anyone except their plans for the joke shop, though they had experienced their share of exploratory snogging and unspoken-of wanking. Then he and Fred had been captured, Fred tortured and killed, and George had found himself on the frontlines of the War. He'd been more comfortable around the men, easily understandable coming from a family which was almost exclusively male. But that didn't explain away some of the intimacies he had shared during dark nights, and even bleaker days. Fred was probably right. He always had been, damn him. He deflected the comment.
"Who needs types when I have you?" George called from the sink, grabbing an enchanted razor, the shampoo, and reaching into the tub to grab some special bar of soap Ginny had sent him from her travels to France. She'd be pleased to see he was using it.
"Oh shove off," Fred retaliated as George re-entered the room. "I'm not yours, for bollock's sake. I was only kidding." He shrugged. "Tell mum I say hi."
"I will not!" George thundered, his patience frayed. "She really misses you. And don't go visiting Bill like last year- you'll absolutely unhinge her."
Fred rolled his eyes. "Fine." He looked disapprovingly down from the canvas. "When did you go getting so bloody serious?"
George looked around the room for his neglected bottle, strode to it and finished off most of the contents. "'M not," he protested. "But things are different. It's just not the same without you, y'know."
Fred looked at him from the portrait. "Really?" he asked. "You miss me?"
"'Course, you idiot," George replied, then raised the dregs of the butterbeer to his twin.
"Up your bum!" they toasted in unison, then George set to packing in earnest, half-listening to Fred's suggestions as he tossed items haphazardly into the trunk.
A half-hour later George stood in front of the portrait, wearing a long wool coat and green and white striped scarf, the Green Knight's colours.
Fred grinned at him. "Happy Christmas. Go on. I have plans." He winked at George.
George groaned and put his fingers in his ears. "Not listening. Not listening."
"Get out. Mum'll be frantic. See you in a few."
George saluted his twin and hauled the trunk to the fireplace. He threw in some floo power.
"The Burrow."
***
Molly had been frantic, though her admonitions were followed by rousing greetings by his siblings, their spouses and/or significant others, and his father. A couple of hours later, George and his mother were the last ones up. He had poured himself a splash of firewhiskey and was about to leave the kitchen when he realized he hadn't told her about their potential guest. Though he had invited Lupin, he was over half-sure that he wouldn't show, but he had already invoked his mother's wrath enough for several lifetimes.
"Mum?"
"Yes, what is it?" She had opened the oven door, and wand in hand, guided three pies over to the counter to cool.
"Well, I invited someone over for Christmas dinner. Professor Lupin came by the shop, and I invited him to drop by. I doubt he'll even-"
"Oh, that would be splendid!" his mother interrupted. "I had just been thinking about him today. Must've conjured him. Used to do that all the time, you know," she prattled on as George stared at her, stunned. "I even made a chocolate pie, the one he commented on a few years back, you remember."
George sipped his firewhiskey, looking somewhat frightened at his mother. "No," he admitted. "I don't. With Dad's attack and all, bit of a rough Christmas, that one. "
"Bit of a�" she began, then clucked her tongue as she walked toward him, raising her arms to rest them on his shoulders. "It's late. You've had a long day. I'll see you in the morning."
He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. "In the morning, then." George took her left hand from his shoulder and kissed the back of it, then turned and went up the stairs to his old room.
***
The next day was chill with heavy fog, but inside the Weasley home, candles blazed and every corner was filled with light and good cheer. Around two o'clock, the front door was flung open. Ron towered in the doorway.
"Ron?" Hermione said, interrupting her conversation with George about the latest advances she'd made in Septenology, the obscure branch of studies which focused on spells that drew on the powerful magical qualities of the number seven. "What are you doing outside? You haven't been smoking, have you?"
"No,'course not!" he replied, though he was waving his elbows just slightly to air out his jacket. "Just getting a breather. And you'll never guess who's here!"
He walked into the entryway and Remus Lupin followed behind him, wearing, to George's surprise, a full length brown leather coat.
"Happy Christmas!" Lupin said, smiling at the assembly. The next few minutes were chaos as he was greeted, hugged, offered both a brandy and a cup of tea, and finally invited to sit on the couch. Percy took his coat to hang it up and then Lupin was hit by a barrage of congratulations about his new reinstatement to the faculty at Hogwarts. The ghostly Professor Binns had suddenly realized that he was dead and had immediately retired, though only after asking Dumbledore for several decades of back pay. At least in the interim, Lupin had been hired to take his place as History of Magic Professor. They asked him how Harry was, and engaged in the usual catching-up until Molly called them to supper. Before Lupin took a seat next to George, Molly came around and embraced him.
"I just knew you were coming," she said, beaming.
"Really?" he replied, raising an eyebrow, then sat down into his chair. "Mother's magic." He shook his head. "I should have known."
"Good thing it didn't always work on me and Fred!" George said, grinning at his mum. "Or she'd have gone completely grey by now."
"Who says I haven't?" she shot back. "Maybe I learned a thing or two from Tonks and I chose not to tell you."
"What do you mean?" Ron asked, looking flabbergasted.
"Let's eat this lovely meal that Molly has prepared," Arthur suggested, and they all dug in.
After they had made a sizeable dent in both the main courses and deserts, Lupin turned to George. "Care to go for that walk now? I could stand to stretch my legs."
"Fair enough," George replied as he scooted his chair back from the table. He took in both of their plates, earning a grateful smile from Lupin, who was then pulled back into a conversation with Hermione while Ron and Ginny fought over the last piece of chocolate pie.
"Mum," George said, placing the plates on the cluttered counter, "Lupin and I are going to go to for a walk. You don't mind, do you?"
His mother turned to look at him. "Do I mind?" She raised her arm and placed the back of her hand to his forehead as though to check his temperature. "Are you ill? Did you drink a polyjuice potion? Who are you, really?" She stepped back and stared at him. "My George would never ask permission, especially at his age."
"Very funny," George said. "All right then. I'm going out. Don't ask me where, or how long I'll be gone, because I won't tell you."
"That's better," she said, smiling. "So where are you going?"
George shrugged as he left the kitchen. "None of your business. I'm an adult wizard, remember."
"George! You'd better be back by dark!" she warned, but he was already striding past the table and headed up the stairs for his coat.
The two went outside moments later, having made a couple of discreet good-byes in the midst of the racket of dishes being cleaned, and Ron and Neville hunkering down to a game of chess.
"Since you've never been to this location before, it'd be best if we apparate together," Lupin said apologetically.
"That's fine," George replied. "We did this all the time during the War." He walked up to Lupin and placed his hands underneath the leather coat, firmly clasping the other man's hips in his hands. Lupin looked a bit surprised, then pleased.
"One should never underestimate a Weasley," he mused. George found his face near Lupin's hair and breathed in the lingering scent of the Burrow, but also underlying traces of pine, and something he couldn't place.
They apparated.
George found himself standing in a pasture still clutching the other man. Nearby, shaggy white sheep with smears of turquoise paint on their backs looked absently up at them, then returned to grazing. Feeling a bit daring, he took an instant to lean his head down just a bit to sniff at Lupin's neck. That mysterious odour was still there, but he was still just as unable to identify what it was.
"Is everything all right?" Lupin asked, turning his head but not stepping out from George's hold. "I do seem to remember taking a bath this morning�"
George somewhat unsteadily let go of Lupin and shuffled back. "No, it's nothing like that," he found himself saying. "You smell good. Didn't mean to be sniffing you like some mangy -"
"It's all right," Lupin interrupted. "Flattering, really." He shoved his hands into his pockets, but smiled warmly at George, who again felt as though the older man's gaze, while kind, also had a predatory appraisal behind it. A flicker of heat stirred in his groin as George realized that he rather enjoyed being eyed by Lupin. Laid bare, almost, underneath his particularly focused attentions.
"� which is why I brought us to this particular cairn," Lupin was saying.
Bollocks! George swore to himself. He'd been so discombobulated by his over-active imagination that now he'd missed out on something important. Pixie's piss.
"Mmmmm," he replied, striding away from Lupin to go to the other side of the mound of large stones. He tried to look insightfully at the rocks while attempting to dredge up something coherent from his soggy mind as a potential reply. He decided on the safest mode of action: silence. He looked down at the piles of quarried grey spheres. They weren't that impressive, he decided, then he looked out across the field. There he saw the taller ones, unmoving stony sentinels huddled in circles, or fallen over, half buried in the ground. He watched as Lupin ambled toward a cluster of grey slabs, then stopped in front of one. He took his naked hand out of his pocket and pressed it against the monolith, then undulated his fingers against it, as though caressing the rock. George was both fascinated and made uncomfortable by the display. What had he been thinking? The man had been a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, which meant that he probably knew all sorts of horrifying and very, very, very old curses. Which might include the obtaining of a lot of blood from a young, red-haired man of pure wizarding stock. He began to get rather creeped out.
"George!" Lupin called out. "Would you come here for a minute?"
George came to his senses. This was Lupin, for goodness' sake. Determined to keep his ridiculous thoughts to a minimum, he strode purposefully toward the older man until he stood next to him.
"Hold out your hand," Lupin demanded. George complied, and Lupin's pale fingers took him by the wrist and placed his hand against the frigid stone. He stood, palm pressed to the rock as a cold breeze blew his hair into his face, wondering why he was in the middle of nowhere at dusk on Christmas Day, with Remus Lupin holding his hand to a large chunk of granite. He'd never hear the end of it from Fred. If he told him.
He watched Lupin make a furtive glance around the field, take out his wand, and point it at the slab. "Clipian Sunne," he murmured. The rock grew warm. George felt as though he were bathed in sunlight. He turned to look at Lupin, who seemed to be glowing. What was going on? He felt waves of warm heat pulse through him, some of it pooling in a rather inappropriate location in his trousers, but he found that he didn't care. Lupin's eyes were shining at him, his face lit from within. He was beautiful, George decided. No, striking was more like it. But definitely attractive. All of those scars gave him a rather battle-worn, but compelling face. He had a sudden vision of himself lying naked, basking under the other man's hungry gaze -
- and pulled his hand from the stone. The warmth fled from him, and he waited for the excitement he had felt for Lupin to vanish with it. But it didn't.
"Um," George began, "what was that?"
Lupin released George's wrist. "A solaris spell, though for it to work in this area you have to speak the words in Anglo-Saxon. It's very old," he continued, leaning into the monolith and looking thoughtfully at George.
"Solaris? Never heard of it," George fumbled, putting his now-cold hand back into his pants pocket.
"You wouldn't," Lupin replied. "Centuries ago, wizards all over what is now the Muggle United Kingdom tried to find a way to trap the heat and light from the sun during the dark months of winter. They created spells to do so, essentially summoning the sun, and enchanted many of the more impressive standing stones with them. Powerful, very specialised magic."
George tried to look as though he were giving Lupin's comments serious thought, though he was really feeling both gratitude and a twinge of loss as his blood flow returned to normal. He nonchalantly hitched up his courderoys, readjusting pants and posture as his more private bits loosened back to their more usual and unobtrusive manner.
"It doesn't have any other effects?" George asked, taking his left hand back out of his pocket to pull his too-long hair out of his eyes. Dammit. He needed a haircut.
"None that I am aware of, and I've been visiting this area for years. And some monoliths in Wales." Lupin looked at him intently. "Why? Did something trouble you?"
George bit the inside of his cheek, wondering how to answer. Was he troubled that he found himself rather unexpectedly attracted to the man? Or was it more that he was sure that he had been misreading Lupin since he had given him a once-over in the shop? Lacking Fred's virtuosic spontaneity, but sharing his forthrightness, George replied, "No. Just had a flash of something naughty."
Lupin's mouth twitched into an intrigued smile, and George placed his hand reassuringly on the soft leather of the other man's coatsleeve.
"Don't worry," he continued. "I'll spare you any details. They're bound to be nauseating."
George watched Lupin's gaze travel from his freckled hand down to his pedestrian footwear, and back up to his face.
"Maybe I'll spill after you've had a couple of Skullsplitters," George went on, "but I'm sure you're busy with teaching and all that."
George mentally beat himself about the head. Bloody hell! 'Maybe I'll spill after�'
He was already reliving the ridiculousness of his offhand proposition when he heard, "Naughty. Sounds like something I'll have to ask you about again."
Lupin looked amused, even paternal.
Sod it. He was an idiot. The Village Idiot. His father's fascination with all things Muggle had managed to seep into his brain, despite his and Fred's decided disinterest in the non-wizarding world. The odd phrase pulsed behind his eyes, threatening to give him a headache.
"Gryffindor plays Ravenclaw in a few weeks. Seeing as how you usually come back to watch Ginny play, would you consider staying to have dinner in my quarters afterwards?"
George teetered on his reply. How did Lupin know that he came back to watch one of Gryffindor's most lauded Seekers, once Quidditch and Hogwarts classes had resumed some semblance of normalcy after the War? Of course Ginny was a natural; it ran in the family.
"Love to," he said. And he meant it.
"Right then," Lupin said. "Skullsplitters. Were a favourite of mine when I was in Glasgow."
"It's all Ron's influence," George admitted. "He's nothing but a magnet for bad habits." He chuckled. "As opposed to me and my absolutely saintly past."
"I'll owl you," Lupin said smiling, putting a hand on George's shoulder and running it down his arm. "And please thank Molly for her exquisite meal. I had a wonderful time."
Dusk was settling darkly around them. George took his right hand to clasp the one on his forearm. "Will do. I'm glad you came by the shop." After a pause, he said, "Til the match, then."
"Til the match."
***
George apparated to the Burrow, made his pleasantries through the rest of the evening, and went to bed. There seemed to be some lingering heat from the trip to Kilmartin trapped in his groin, however; some unfortunate reawakening that needed tending to. Not that he wasn't practised at taking care of himself by now, seeing as how having sex with anybody just hadn't been a real priority of late. Or the last couple of years, for that matter.
An image of Lupin, his silver-streaked hair curling above his shoulders as George held him from behind, jumped friskily to mind. He wasn't sure where it had come from, but George decided it was as good as any as far as fantasies went. He closed his eyes, cast a hasty and often-uttered silencing charm, and imagined Lupin's husky voice egging him on.
It wasn't long at all before he was sated.
***End part 1***