George Weasley (inoneearnout) wrote in disorderic, @ 2018-03-05 15:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | alicia spinnet, angelina johnson, fred weasley, george weasley, katie bell |
WHO: Fred & George Weasley, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, Katie Bell (and Mittens)
WHAT: One of Graham's plans finally work
WHEN: Late evening after close, Monday, March 5
WHERE: WWW, Diagon Alley
WARNINGS: Violence/Injury, Fire
It wasn’t uncommon for George to find himself working late downstairs. The shop was closed for the day, the girls and Fred were all up at the flat, and he found that to be the best time to concentrate on things that were so dull any company would be a welcome distraction. The workshop in the back was full of half-built inventions, brewing experiments, and the desk that he liked to call his ‘Serious Business’ desk because it housed most of the paperwork that let them keep Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes afloat. That’s where he currently sat, going over receipts. The self-defense line of products were doing better than ever, but other lines had seen a dip. Not that people didn’t want something to cheer them up in these dark times - that’s the promise they made to Harry of course, but - sometimes finding time to cheer up amongst it all wasn’t high on priorities. It didn’t help that Muggleborns had always been a huge source of income - Muggle parents didn’t know about Skiving Snackboxes, after all. George frowned down at the numbers as he thought of it. Potterwatch, the Order, the Wandless… and here they were still trying to make people laugh. He knew it was needed, but sometimes when he looked out the windows and saw the Wandless out there desperate and cold, his stomach turned and he wondered if it would ever be enough. Were any of them really doing enough? George turned a page in his account book, wand tapping it so that the important numbers would float up in fancy gold lettering and he wouldn’t have to squint down at his own scribbled handwriting when he heard a noise from inside the shop. Nothing much, but having Ange and Alicia living with them had put him on edge more so than usual and he quickly stood to strain his ears, wand lifting to enhance the aid inside his bad one. He was sure he’d heard… he moved toward the threshold that separated the workshop in back from the storefront, and just as he opened the door, the hearing aid picked up one faint click, his own inhale, and then everything around him exploded. It was strange - the shelves of the shop started to fall inward and then all he could see was fire and smoke as he was knocked up off his feet and thrown through the wall. His body hit asphalt hard, his entire left side screaming in pain with the burns from the blast, a ringing in his good ear and nothing at all in his bad one. Completely disoriented, George attempted to lift his head but the building was collapsing around him. He didn’t know where his wand went. Everything hurt, he didn’t have time to think about what damage being thrown into the wall and then the ground had done because there was smoke choking him and where the storefront used to be was a glowing pile of rubble and the workshop was on its way to join it, support beams catching fire. All he had the wherewithal to do was reach out with his right arm desperately to grab at anything and pull himself away, but his body wouldn’t move, a sharp, searing pain shooting up his torso. He glanced down, noticing for the first time the pipe that had gone through his leg and pinned him there, blood pooling around him. Head falling back to the ground, George helplessly stared out toward Diagon’s front street and saw the sign for Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes half broken over one of the local stands, closed at this hour luckily. He only had time to briefly wonder how much it’d cost to get a new sign before consciousness gave way to black. The popcorn was ready, Fred re-entering the lounge of his apartment, throwing kernels at his friends as he did. “George is still working?” He commented, noticing that his brother hadn’t joined them yet. He’d just pulled out his phone to tell George to stop being a nerd and come hang out with them when it happened. There was no time to react. The room collapsed around them and filled with smoke, debris flying. “Ang?” He yelled, ears ringing and panic in his voice. “Alicia, Katie??” “Fred?” Angelina called back, panic in her own voice. “Mittens?” Everything sounded like she was underwater, though, as she strained to listen for Mittens around the unrelenting ringing. She felt something hot and wet dripping down the side of her face, but she ignored it, pushing herself to her feet to search. She couldn’t let Gawain’s cat die, too. One minute she’d been sat laughing at something that one of the others had said, and the next Katie had been thrown off her perch on the arm of the sofa. She cried out as she fell to the floor but couldn’t even hear it at first, the noise of the explosion leaving her struggling to hear through the ringing in her ears. Alicia instinctively ducked as soon as things started falling. Her head throbbed when she got to her feet after the initial explosion, but she could just make out Fred calling to them. “I’m here,” she shouted, unable to hear her own voice. She squinted through the smoke and dust filling the air. “We need to find George!” “George!” Fred shouted, just in case he could hear him, to no response. He repeated his brother’s name, louder still, pushing himself up from the ground and making his way through the haze, arms out in front of him to try find his friends. “We all need to get out of here,” he yelled, trying to ignore the pit in his stomach at not knowing if George was okay. Something warm brushed up against Angelina’s legs right as one of Fred’s hands bumped her shoulder and quickly stooped to scoop up what she hoped was Mittens, feeling a rush of relief when it was. She clutched the cat to her chest with one arm and returned to Fred, grabbing his hand. “It’s me,” she yelled. “Where’s Katie?” “I’m here,” Katie groaned loudly, limbs feeling heavy as she tried to stand up. She pressed a hand to her head, an unsuccessful attempt at stopping the buzzing that she couldn’t get out of her ears. “Is George still downstairs?” “He must be,” Alicia said before tucking her nose into the collar of her shirt. They wouldn’t be able to help him from here. Once she was sure all the house’s upstairs inhabitants could get out, she wrapped her hand around the wand in her pocket and disappeared, leaving a swirl of ash and rubble behind her. Fred squeezed Angelina’s hand painfully tight then, with great reluctance, let go. “Go,” he urged her and Katie, not willing to leave until he knew his friends were out safely. The shop, their apartment, it was meant to be a safe place for all of them and instead it had put them in more danger. “I’ll be right behind you!” Angelina hesitated, but Mittens gave a wriggle in her arm and she plunged her hand into her pocket for her wand. “You better be!” With that, focused intently on the street outside despite the swimming in her head, she disapparated. “Ow,” Katie whined softly as she searched for her own wand, copying Angelina and disapparating quickly. With all the girls out, Fred took one last, quick look at his home, now in ruins, then disapparated out to join them. Right now finding George was more important than the destruction of the business they had worked so hard to build. |