It's Better If You Do

"Thank you for buying from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes," Rose said sweetly, handing over the love potion to a girl who appeared to be a bit sheepish about having bought the product. She murmured her thanks and left hurriedly, for Fred's group that had gathered around him were quite rowdy. Begging for more fireworks and demonstrations, their voices almost rose above the rest of the loud noises; the pops, bangs, whistles, retches, and shrieks of children elsewhere throughout the store throbbed within her ears until she almost couldn't stand it. But she had never had more fun.

She felt a part of the store, even if her only part was to sell small products to customers who couldn't get a hold of the twins, or point them in the right direction as they inquired about a product. The layout of the store wasn't too hard to learn; hats, telescopes, trick wands and fake ones were on the second floor, along with a few other products, like the extendable ears. The first floor was divided into subtle sections; the WonderWitch products and the currently empty Pygmy Puff cage was in the middle, and working farther to the back were the fireworks, Portable Swamps, and other major magic items, while the Skiving Snackboxes and other main attractions were in the forefront of the store.

Rose gave the Skiving Snackboxes table a wide berth, and she noticed that Bellamy was doing the same. Neither of them were much up to cleaning up after people getting sick into cauldrons, even if they would be using magic, the smell was likely to make them get sick themselves. Unless the twins distinctly told her to help out with that particularly atrocious activity, she would make herself useful in any other way possible, which she was doing now, as she stood guarding the love potions against two women who wore obnoxiously bright shades of pink.

They glared at her, but she simply crossed her arms across her chest, staring back at them coolly. If they thought she was going to let them try and steal with her on the watch, they had another thing coming. They seemed to realize this and forced hard smiles, and approached.

"We want to buy some love potions," said the taller of the two in a high nasally voice. Rose winced internally, but merely raised an eyebrow.

"And how old are you two? Certain potions aren't for sale to under sixteens." she said curtly, wondering if that was true or not. Regardless, she was following her instincts about the two. They rubbed her the wrong way, and she had a feeling they would get some poor unfortunate boy into a heap of trouble. The girl scoffed, and the other spoke.

"We are eighteen, thank you. Do you even work here?" she asked rudely, looking around for one of the twins.

"In fact, I do. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to decline your purchase," she said stepping closer to the potions, her chin held high.

"We're going to go talk to the owners," the taller of them said, obviously affronted. Rose smirked slightly, seeing George out of the corner of her eye.

"I don't think that's neccessary," she said smoothly. "George! Over here, if you please." He looked around for a moment and saw her, before his eyes narrowed on the girls, who began giggling and falling over each other quite childishly. He hesitated, then slowly walked over, looking a bit frightened.

"What is it you need, Rosie?" he asked, cringing slightly. It clicked into place slowly, piece by piece. An idea springing into her head, she smiled brightly at him, and threw her arm around his waist.

"Nothing, love. I was just going to tell you that these lovely girls here wanted to buy a love potion. Too bad, though, because there's no good blokes taken since I have you, honey," she enthused, turning her head slightly toward him, winking. He grinned suddenly, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

"I'm sure you're just biased, sugarplum. They can find some other lucky guys to date them." he said, shrugging. The two girls were visibly seething and it took all Rose had not to burst into laughter.

"Since when have you two been together?" the shorter one asked, scowling. "Beatrice and I haven't seen you with her and we've been here every day."

"Just yesterday. Marvelous, isn't it?" Rose said in a much peppier voice than her usual, and giggled like a school girl. George bit his lip hard, otherwise he would collapse into laughter at how silly she was acting.

The one named Beatrice turned to the shorter, and squawked, "Come on. We have other places to be." As they stormed out, Rose and George doubled over with laughter, holding their sides as tears of mirth traveled down their cheeks.

"Wasn't that a great act, honey?" George asked mockingly, as he straightened up. She nodded vigorously, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling with mischief.

"Marvelous, sugarplum," she agreed, before turning to him incredilously. "Who are those lunatics, anyways? I thought I was going to have to call for back up to stop them from nicking the love potions."

"They're mental," he said darkly, shaking his head. "They follow me around, gawking and giggling. I'm assuming they were going to use my own products against me, and the sad thing is they'd work, too," he paused, and his eyes gleamed with gratitude as he kneeled, hugging her knees. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. You're a life saver!"

Laughing hysterically, she patted his head, choking out a word between giggles, "Your welcome, George. I don't think your actual life was in any danger, however."

"What are you two doing?" came an appalled male voice from behind Rose, and she turned her head, and began laughing again. Fred's eyebrows had dissapeared into his hairline, and his perplexed expression was priceless.

"She saved me, Fred!" George exclamed reverently, getting to his feet. "Those nutters were back again, and she pretended to be my girlfriend, and they left!"

Snickering loudly, Fred shook his head, while Rose explained more, "They looked about ready to beat me to a pulp to get to the love potions, but I wouldn't let them. I wasn't going to sell to them; they gave me the creeps."

George's happy smile only grew wider and he said gleefully, "You- you see! She's a genius, Fred!"

"That she is," he agreed giving her a wink. She blushed, but only barely. A slow smirk spread across Fred's face, and he said loftily, "If only Bellamy had seen. Then maybe she would have felt like you had earlier."

The happy expression slid off George's face in an instant, and he glared at his brother, grumbling, "I was not jealous."

"Of course not. That's just why you drove off her only customer, who happened to be male," Fred said, flinging an arm around his twin's shoulder. Rose's eyes lit up in curiosity.

After checking to make sure Bellamy was no where around, she asked in hushed tones, "You like Bellamy?"

"No, I don't!" he said quickly, but it was painfully obvious. She raised her eyebrows with a slight smirk, but he remained firm. "I don't. Now, if you excuse me, I've got work to do."

As he left, she murmured to Fred with a smile, "I'm going to fix them up."

He looked down at her, with a brow raised skeptically, "That might not be the smartest idea."

"Why not? He likes her. She'd like him if she'd just stop thinking about Julian so much. He'd take her mind off of him, and she might be happy again. What could go wrong?" she asked cheerfully, giving him a light kiss on the cheek, before skipping off to find the stubborn brunette she loved so dearly.