A/N: Hello, my loves! I've decided to branch out, but only enough to have another narrator for my third person limited style. I hope you enjoy. I'm predicting this story won't stay a one-shot. It was too much fun!

J.K. Rowling owns all the things. Reviews, as always, give me the warm fuzzies. Kisses!

Harry grabbed Ron's shoulder for the fifth time so far that evening. "Not her. That one's hair is too wavy. You know she stopped using that smoothing whatever-it-was years ago."

Ron relaxed beside him for a moment. He went back to leaning against the ping pong table they were stationed near. He was on edge more than usual, clearly not enjoying the gathering as he would have in other circumstances.

Harry himself wasn't having a grand time, either. Ginny Weasley was just across the den of the house party they were gate crashing, dancing with Dean Thomas. She was right there and all because he'd thought he would have a go at Cho Chang at a New Years
party, she was there with another bloke. It was effective in sending the very clear message of "not a chance."

Dean pulled her in rather close and said something right in her ear. It was apparently hilarious, cause her flaming hair went flying as she whipped her head around to nod and laugh. Her eyes flashed his way, and with the considerable amount lager he'd
already downed as a result of her arrival, the thought to lower his gaze didn't even cross his mind.

Ron grunted and moved to go toward the entrance. "Not her." Ron hit his shoulder, making him turn his head from Ginny and actually look where he was pointing. "Oh, right. Nope, that's her."

Hermione was quickly swarmed by Lavender and Pavarti, so they hung back for moment. They surveyed the bodies behind her, attempting to see the bloke she was supposed to be bringing. It was, after all, the only reason Ron had agreed to come along.

They spotted Fred when the girls made no sign of breaking up their interrogation of Hermione and moved through the crowd toward him. He nodded their way when they called his name and jerked his head toward the kitchen. Ron quickened his steps but Harry
paused. He considered the contents in his cup and looked up to shake his head "no" to the offer. Just as he did his eyes landed on Ginny letting Dean nuzzle her ear.

He gulped down what was left and shoved his way through the sea of bodies. "Fill it." Ron shot him a bewildered look but Fred just nodded and followed his orders as he dumped some concoction into the cup. "What is it?"

"Something George and I came up with. You know, we are the party kings." He poured some into two more cups and took a swift swig after sending them a mocking wink. His face twisted into a grimace only after they had each taken deep gulps of the burning
mixture. "Has a right kick, doesn't it? Haven't done this one in a while."

The two coughed and Harry's head almost felt asfoggy as if he'd been hitting hard whiskey the last hour and not just lager. He listened to the voice that said being totally trashed wouldn't be the worst idea since he wanted to forget the images
of Ginny and Dean anyway. He prepared to take another swig before a hand grabbed the red cup out of his grasp.

"Oi!"

Hermione took a sniff of the cup's contents and rolled her eyes. "Fred. Really?"

He laughed out right and stole Ron's cup before the younger man could clear his head enough from his initial drink and stop him. He wagged his eye brows at her and downed the drink as Ron finally had sense to protest. She took a sip from Harry's pilfered
cup, gagged and dumped it down the sink behind their older friend. Then he saw something weird: Hermione ran her hand over his back.

"Um, 'Moine?" She hummed and raised her brows in question once she took the empty space to his right around the island. "Nothing. I think I want another lager."

She thought for a moment and slid her eyes to Fred. He nodded, eager glint in his eyes and she smirked in a way Harry and never seen before. Harry felt like he was going to throw up and it had nothing to do with the alcohol already taking up space in
his stomach.

"Ron." He turned to Harry with a distant look in his eyes. "You may wanna have one, too, mate. This night is about to get rather barmy."

Ron shrugged and grabbed the bottle his brother offered him. Fred nodded at someone who was part of the massive see of bodies that was the party. He made his way out of the kitchen, squeezing Hermione's shoulder as he left. She watched him go, absently
taking a pull of her drink.

"'Moine, we heard a vicious rumour going around the old gossip circuit," he paused to nudge Ron, who was glaring at her from across the island. "We heard you're seeing a new bloke. We also heard that he would be here with you tonight. Which is why we've
risked Lavender's wrath and gate crashed."

She blushed and tugged her ear. "Oh, yeah. I suppose you're right. I do have a new bloke, so to speak."

Ron sat his bottle down with a white knuckled fist. "So, you brought him to what? Show him off? Best way to get word around to your poor sap of an ex. Have a right laugh at my expense, that's what you're doing!"

Harry gripped his shoulder and shook his head. "No, mate. That's not it. Just drink your beer, yeah?"

He grunted and did as he was told when Hermione had good naturedly aided in getting the bottle off the counter and to his lips. "Oh, Ronald. That's not it at all."

She sighed and took another swig of her own. "I was actually hoping you'd gate crash. This one is different. I'm actually really nervous."

Harry snorted and put his bottle to his lips to cover his smirk. "Yeah. Nervous." He sighed. "New bloke, you say? How new?"

She raised her brow and coughed on her drink. "Oh, really? Is that honestly necessary?"

Harry let her shelve the topic then, both Ron and he following her into the thick of the party. Trying to distract himself, he let her guide the topics of conversation and only intervened when Ron was reminded of why he was frustrated. Ron, for the most
part, was content with the buddy-like atmosphere of their trio haunting corners and tables.

Fred would pass by with a group of his own friends, having called George and Angelina in as reinforcement Harry guessed, from time to time. He would send Hermione fervent looks and she would shake her head. Angelina engaged her in conversation after a
bit, allowing Fred to casually slide in next to her and manoeuvre his hand around to graze the one she had behind her back resting on the ping pong table they were once again loitering around.

Harry felt sick, again. "So, Ronniekins, how are you holding up after leaving the academy. I mean how are really doing? Not the rubbish you feed Fred."

Ron sniffed and set his empty bottle next to the few that they had collected over the time they'd been stationed there. "S'alright. The grunt work is dead boring and I'm still helping out doing odd jobs at the shop to keep busy. Other than that I can't
complain, I guess."

George nodded then tugged his head toward Hermione. "I bet you aren't doing as good as she is, eh? Or do you have yourself a bird you've been hiding."

"He hasn't brought anyone around the flat that I've noticed." Fred waggled his eyebrows suggestively and turned his attention to them in earnest now. "Who do you recon her new beau is, ickle Ronniekins?"

Harry shoved his way through the crowd to get away from the teasing pair. He didn't blame them for having their fun, since Ron was rather thick with that sort of thing. Fred and Hermione weren't even being stealthy, and he still hadn't caught on to them.
But the harassment at his best friend's expense was almost more than he could bare, even if he was envious of the couples ability to manage some form of stealth.

When he made his way back with fresh drinks for them, he spotted Ginny nearly snogging Dean in a corner. "Shit." He felt the beast that had taken up residence in his head since Ginny had gotten into Uni nearly 6 years prior rustle and come alive. It whispered
and then roared when he got Fred running his hand over Hermione's back out of Ron's view. "Excellent."

He passed around drinks, staving off the plan his jealous beast was forming. His eyes kept shifting between the different powder kegs prime for blowing up around the room. When Dean was starting to pull Ginny toward the door, he made his decision, no
matter how utterly mad and ill-advised it was.

He sighed heavily and took a deep pull to finish his drink. "Right, I'm just gonna rip the bandaid off, shall I." He shushed Fred over the chatter and kicked Ron to get his confused brow focussed on him. "Fred and Hermione are shagging. I'm gonna go make
a pass at your sister. Oi, Ginny!"

The rest of the night was a blur of loud music and yelling. He was sure he wasn't the only one being yelled at and that it wasn't just Ginny yelling at him the whole time. He was aware that that night was all going to add up to one massive headache come
the next day.

When he did wake up the next morning, Ron was on the couch, looking miserable even in sleep. "Oh, he was not happy with me." Harry turned cautiously to see Hermione leaning against her door jam. "I don't know why I thought any of this could work."

He shrugged, well aware of her concerns. "Yeah. We aren't really good at this whole fancying a Weasley thing., you and me."

She nodded sadly and bit her lip. They were silent for a moment before he signalled her to follow him to the kitchen. She did so with a lowered head, and he knew he had handled things very badly the night before.

"I'm really sorry about outing you. I don't know what I was thinking?" He pulled down cups as she put the kettle on and started some toast. "I think it was that drink that Fred made. It was powerful stuff. That mixed with the lager, mixed with my own
messed up situation, and I just couldn't keep my head."

She snorted and began frying up eggs. "Felix Felicis. I don't think they actually came up with that one, like he said. I think he sometimes brags for the sake of hearing his own voice and seeing who would believe him. He can be such a prat sometimes."

Harry hummed and got some plates down. Hermione went about making breakfast, as well mixing her pick-me-up tea to help ease the punishment of the night before. She sat the cups down at the table and meted out eggs and toast. He pulled out the jam and
butter and they sat down to breakfast, giving a pause to the conversation.

"About the whole Fred thing?"

Hermione blushed and sent him a guarded look he hadn't seen since they'd met their first year at Uni. "I don't know what to say. Where to start? I'm being serious here. I don't where you want me to start."

"Okay." He huffed and scratched his head as he thought. "When did you guys start this mess? I mean, why would be nice as well, suppose."

"That is hard to explain. Remember when I was trying to get Ron's stuff back to him? Well, when I was trying to smooth things over between us." Harry shrugged but nodded instead when she glowered at him. "Anyway, it was a little while after he had moved
into George's old room in the flat above the Twin's shop. I thought, wrong as it turned out, that he would want his things back. So he would feel more comfortable."

"When you got that new mattress and other bedroom stuff? Right. Now I remember."

She sighed but nodded. "Yes, Harry. As I was saying, he told me exactly what he thought of me and my attempts at "winning him back." He wasn't too kind, either. We had one of our worst rows ever. I think I threw that figurine of the owl, that one that
Sirius had gotten him as a joke. Chucked it right at his head.

"He was almost cruel, and I wasn't much better. Fred heard everything. He was on the balcony when I came out and just stood there, head down. He gave me a hug as I passed and I left."

Harry nodded, but he couldn't stop the wave of confusion that washed over his face. "Though I don't doubt your story telling capabilities, I think you went off track a bit. That sounded like an end to a story, not a beginning?"

She sniffed a bit and played with her napkin. "I, uh, avoided the place pretty steadily. I mean, avoiding Ron isn't hard. You two are both just out of the academy and in the force now, you know what your routine is like. I'm always busy with my continued
law studies, since I finished. But, I used to go there often to chat with them and there's this lovely cafe down the road. But, I stopped. You see, there's another reason I ended things with Ron."

"You fancied Fred." She jumped and whirled around to take in the red head with wide eyes. "The thought occurred to me last night about the third time I'd gotten up to unload my guts in the John. I don't like it, but I can't stop it. So, yeah."

She looked like she wanted to hug him but held herself back and simply got him a cup of tea before sitting back down to her own. "Well, no? Not consciously, any way, and after much consideration I don't think it was more than an after thought. No, I didn't
fancy Fred, but he and George made me realise I fancied the idea of us and not really you."

"Explain."

"So, you remember that mess with Angelina our third year at Uni? I was oddly Fred's confidant and it made me re-think our whole mess, Ron. I'm not going to reiterate the notion that you felt just as off kilter about things as I did. My ears are still
ringing from the last time." The dark look that passed over his face before disappearing proved that was wise. "I just realised we weren't really working well as a couple. We were great as friends, but really Ron."

He gulped down some tea, and grunted out, "back to Fred."

"So, when I stopped going to the cafe, he started bringing my favourites for us to share when I was on campus. It was just after we all finished at the academy. He made me laugh and distracted me enough to keep the studies from getting to be too much.
With you two off and in the force, I just get so swamped with my books and homework."

"You were the one who thought environmental law was a good field of study. We never told you law studies were a good idea." Harry shook his head and flicked his fork in her direction. "Nope. We even told you not to do it, I think. Told you you would end
up in parliament someday if you kept up with it."

Ron's face screwed up as if he'd tasted something gross. "Can't think of anything worse, mate. Not one thing."

She whacked him in the arm with a huff. "Honestly! Right, so, he brought me things, chatted me up, one thing led to another, we had a drunken shag on the table and that was that."

Both boys shot from their seats with equal looks of horror on their faces. Harry's eyes shifted to Ron who looked like he was about to be sick. They both cried out in outrage and began hurling abuse at her.

"I'm joking." She was laughing, tears in her eyes and waved them off. "It was in Harry's room. We got confused on the way to mine. Kidding! The couch."

Ron was red everywhere skin was visible. "Alright, I'm done. There was no drunken snagging. Swear on Crookshanks life."

Harry considered her for a moment, taking in that she loved her ridiculously ugly cat, and sat back down gingerly. "You making jokes about shagging. What's Fred done to you?"

"Actually, he rather nervously asked me to leave his own party early, before I could even get there actually. That one that he threw 3 months ago? We never even got there, considering he showed up on our door step. Went to France for the weekend. It was
fantastically out of the blue and I was very at odds with myself the whole time. It was the best holiday date I'd been on. Sorry, Ron."

Harry watched Ron shake his head in denial. "He was there, though. We chatted with him."

"Nope. His ear was missing now that I'm looking back. We were plastered just enough to not notice. Blimey, we didn't even care. You were still grumpy as all hell that you were single and I was right pissed at Dean."

"Oh yeah. But why?"

"Doesn't matter." Hermione snorted and Ron turned his confused gaze to her, oblivious to Harry's uncomfortable blush. "Any way, we were talking to George all night. Never even saw Fred. Well, damn, 'Moine."

Ron scratched his neck. "Right. Well, that's that then." He got up and made himself a plate and sat down to shovel a forkful in his mouth. "What was that mess with Dean, yeah?"

Just as he was going to answer the front door was opened and closed rather loudly. He turned in his chair, his pathetic explanation like lead on his tongue. There was Ginny, the object of his affection and best mates kid sister. She was beautiful rage
fire personified as she crossed her arms and levelled her flashing eyes on him.

"Why the hell did you kiss me last night?"

Ron wretched and dropped his fork. "I'm never coming back here, again."