unusual conversations

"Disney," Hermione repeated, staring at her brother-in-law as they both leaned against Ron's desk. George had been in Diagon Alley and had stopped by the ministry to see if Ron was available for lunch, Hermione was waiting on Ron for a planned lunch date. Ron was off on a call.

"Yeah, you ever heard of that? Muggle thing right?" George said standing straight and offering her his arm. "Lunch at the Leaky, madam?"

"Yes. I--why on earth are you interested in Disney." Hermione absently stood and took George's arm, stuck on George asking about Disney characters.

"Odd conversation--"

"I'm not sure I want to know why Luna is interested in Disney." Hermione said a bit warily.

George bit his tongue. Hermione was nearly as paranoid as Harry. The fact that he had spent the entire evening chatting with a strange one-eyed American Wizard about--well a little bit of everything and a lot of nothing was likely to get Hermione tiwtchy and fussy.

Hermione seemed to be wracking her brain. "This is Luna though, she could be using it as research for her new hobby."

George raised an eyebrow. "You heard about that one?" Luna was thinking about taking up earth-based Sorcery as a hobby. George wondered if they'd have to move their sort-of monthly dinner and drinks to the visiting room at Azkaban.

"I bumped into her at a Muggle Occult Bookstore."

George's eyebrow went a little further up. "And what were you doing there?"

"Looking for a volume on Far Eastern dragon mythology."

"What do Muggles know about dragons?"

Hermione groaned. "They have stories of dragons, you know that. And there are some myths that have been around centuries upon centuries. It may not be accurate or detailed information but it is still a perspective, and something that cannot totally be discounted."

"So about that Disney stuff?"

"You shouldn't encourage her, really, George," Hermione said sounding a bit like his mother.

"Are we having the bad influence lecture again? If we are--I'm going to head back to the shop and pretend to be deaf on the way." George asked eyebrows disappearing up under his bangs in askance.

Hermione blushed at the reminder of the New Year's gathering a few months before. George had enough grace, just barely, not to laugh at her discomfort at the reminder.

Everyone thought that he was the bad influence on Neville and Luna, which was frankly utterly ridiculous. Neville and Luna more than held their own with him. The strange friendship between the three of them had cemented standing in the corners at assorted gatherings they'd been guilted into over the years, filled with the overwhelming coupleness of everyone who had paired off in the immediate aftermath of the war. He couldn't ask for stranger best friends, but it worked well.

Ginny and Hermione were amongst the worst to try to set the three of them up, until this past New Years when they'd been tipsy enough to get some other maggoty idea in their heads and Hermione had stammeringly asked if the three of them were more than friends.

Luna and Neville had struck before George could ask his sister-in-law, and baby sister who was standing right next to Hermione, if they'd lost their bloody minds or were simply that drunk. Neville had leaned in and gave him a kiss that would probably have had him on his knees and begging if he went for blokes, Luna draped herself against them with the most focused, wicked look any of them had ever seen on her face and purred they were her darling little pets, weren't they pretty?

Somehow, George had gotten the blame for all of that. Eavesdropping spell or extendable ears, and somehow conning sweet, not-all-there Luna and hopelessly innocent and darling Neville into participating in his little practical joke. He'd been the innocent victim in it all--not that anyone would believe that.

*

Xander hung up the phone with Kafu. His head was throbbing. He hadn't even gotten a chance to ask for a bit more information on the European Wizarding Society before Kafu started off on a long tirade. They had some sort of disaster and Kafu couldn't get some batch of weeds in Cairo, the apothecarist there would try but hadn't known when or how when Kafu had fire-talked to him. Still he had at least where to go to find the Wizardy shopping district, and eyeball the weirdness that had the most proximity to his girls and Giles.

"I'm going to London!" Xander called out. "Be back this evening."

"You're leaving, that's good" Willow bounced out of the kitchen, beaming.

"Love you too Wills." Xander snorted.

Willow blinked. "Uhm uh--"

"I should be back by eight."

"Perfect" Dawn grinned.

"Uh huh." Xander shook his head. Oh yeah, up to something. Hopefully nothing that was going to end in stitches and cleaning up demon guts if it was meant to be festive.

*

Xander waved at the guy behind the bar of the Leaky Cauldron. Huh and who knew the grungy little pub would be the secret entrance type place. Kafu had gotten the exact directions from the Cairo apothecarist. Xander headed through the pub and the alley behind. That there was a Goblin bank here was of the good actually, in fact would have been of the good to have actually known that ages ago.

Then again Goblins weren't exactly the talkative sort. At least none of them Xander had ever met had ever been. Actually telling something useful was akin to giving things away. Goblins didn't do that.

He glared at the wall. "Oh c'mon open sesame or whatever." The wall glared back a moment, or seemed to, then moved allowing Xander entrance even if he didn't have the wand and do the tappy thing that Kafu said was the right way to do it, but Kafu also said it should open for Xander without a problem even without doing a tappy-thing with a mojo stick.

*

"Xander!" George called out.

"Hey," Xander smiled at the guy he'd been drinking with three nights before. "A familiar face, this is good. You busy?"

"Not really. I'm the boss, gave myself the afternoon off. I was going to harass my little brother but he's busy and his wife is back on the George needs a nice witch to settle down with and keep him out of mischief kick."

"My girls have been firmly dissuaded of the Xander is lonely we must set him up school of thought after the last disaster." That had involved an exorcism, a mini-quest for de-demonizing artifacts and a near miss of a mini-apocalypse. His girls were forced to admit Xander and Dating had become as non-mixy as Xander and Mojo. Willow decided he must be cursed, probably D'Hoffryn over Anya getting redemption. Willow had apologized she hadn't had time to look into any possibilities on that front.

"Lucky you. So what are you up to?"

"I need to find the bank, and then the stinky weed dealer because a friend of mine needs guts and noxious weeds and they're out in Cairo."

"Never been to Diagon before?"

"That'd be a big no. I've been to the Bazaar in Cairo, and a couple places around Los Angeles back home but.."

George grinned. "I'll show you around,"

"Yay. Go me. Scored my very own personal tour guide."

*

"Were pink ears and tail what you were going for?" Xander asked by way of greeting two weeks later. He was heading back to Africa in two days, and his girls had the rest of the time claimed.

"No, but if it wears off without a counter it's worth repeating" George grinned.

Xander laughed.

"Just us. Neville ended up having to cover detentions and Luna is off chasing Wurbles or something." George said slightly disappointed, because he was fairly sure Xander, Neville and Luna would get along smashingly.

Xander shrugged. "It's okay. Next time I'm back. Be probably in the fall."

"Did your friend get his potion ingredients all right?"

"Kafu? Yeah. The world didn't end everything's all dandy"

George snorted. "Potions masters get a bit dramatic, should have seen the one we had for a professor when we were in school...Snape turned out to be one of the good guys when it all came down to it, but he was a royal git."

Xander smiled and nodded, not bothering to correct that he'd meant literally the world hadn't ended. "So you think pink kitty ears and tails are going to be the new big thing--why?"

George started laughing and admitted. "I was going for more of a Saber-toothed tiger look."

"Saber-toothed hello kitty maybe." Xander laughed.

"What?"

Xander shook his head. "Willow liked this little cartoon cat in a dress when we were kids."

"Muggle thing?"

"Yeah," And score one for the Xand-man. Thank you Kafu for the Muggle-rants.