"Well, I'm not sure about the why of it - for all that they live in our houses and interact with us on a daily basis, wizards don't seem to know a lot about the culture of house-elves - but I try to be understanding. Izzy is more vocal than most elves, but he has been with me since he was very young. I think I rub off on him a little." She smiled.
She took the glass from him when he joined her, smiling again when he kissed her cheek.
Muriel swirled the whiskey in her glass, which was smoking slightly, then lifted it to her lips for a sip. "Mmm," she murmured in response to George, enjoying the way her voice rumbled out through her warm throat. "I enjoy having you." In more ways than one, more often than not, but she didn't think that was what George was talking about. He had that innocent eagerness about him tonight. "There is always something wonderful about being with someone you don't have to be careful around."
And that was it, really. Theirs was an odd sort of relationship, because in most ways it was as it had been since that first Christmas after the war, or since she had visited him in hospital - or somewhere between those two instances, really - at the point at which at which they had gone from being aunt and great-nephew to something more like friends. And it stayed like that, mostly - closer than before, but similar in feel - except for the times when it really, really didn't.