A/N: Thanks for the reviews, follows and favourites! I'm happy to see some interest toward my story, and here is the next part. Or rather this is how it started. Let's read, and leave a few words for me in the end!
SV
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Hermione was lost in her memories. She still remembered that conversation word by word, his calm confidence, and Ginny's shrieks clashing with the rude remarks of Ron.
She was in the room when the argument started, and when it got louder, she decided to find a place somewhere out of their way.
"I'm sorry. I'm pretty sure that's not how you wanted to spend the summer." Fred was standing in front of her, strangely quiet, and even stranger, alone. "There is a reason my family likes to spend time outdoors so much. You can see yourself what happens, when we can't."
"They sure have a bit of a temper," Hermione agreed, annoyance seeping through her words.
"I'm sorry you have to endure us."
"How are you not joining them?"
"Believe me, I want to," he rolled his eyes. "Maybe silence them with a well placed hex or a brand new candy... But I know what's good for me. As I mentioned, I know a truly effective stress relief." He cocked one eyebrow, and Hermione had a distinct feeling that she didn't quite catch his meaning. "Wanna try?"
She shrugged. Why not? She accepted his stretched out hand and let him pull her up the stairs, wherever they were going. She wondered if he meant holding hands, because his palm was warm and slightly wet against her cold one (the temperature was freezing in that old prison of a house despite being summer on the streets), and as he patted his thumb on her skin in every turn, she felt her worries ease away. He carefully opened a door to the attic – which should still be full of garbage since Molly deemed the attic a place for garbage anyway; but it was clean and almost empty, except for some pieces of furniture, like the small coffee table or the grand mattress covered by comfy-looking blankets and a baldachin. Fred stopped, one of his hands still clutching hers, while with the other one, he started gesturing around, sometimes burying it in his hair while speaking.
"Mum said we should leave this place alone, but you know how I am... When she specifically forbade me to come here, I just had to. It was easy, really, I simply threw out everything into the Vanisher Bin; it's under the window." He chuckled. "Tried to make a small hideout here. You like it?" he mumbled.
"It's really nice!" Hermione sighed, frowning a bit. "But why, pray tell, are you showing it to me?" She knew to be suspicious about everything the twins had ever done, but the absence of George made the situation even more unsettling.
Fred's hand found its way into his hair once more before he planted the well-known mischievous smile on his lips, and said: "Because this is where we would do the stress relieving! If it's alright with you, of course," he added sheepishly.
Hermione had a bad feeling.
"What are we going to do while 'relieving stress'?" Her parents had a lot of magazines about health for their patients to read in the waiting room, and Hermione had read many of them. The articles often discussed stress and stress relief techniques, but now, she was uncertain which required a cosy little hideout. "Oh my goodness, Fred, are you blushing?" Hermione squealed, understanding immediately, what he wanted her to do.
"I was thinking a bit of snogging, you know kissing and the like. Perhaps something more, if you feel up to it. It's easy, it's taking up time, it's fun. Trust me on this," he said, looking deeply into her eyes, and in that moment, her legs stopped obeying her. Oh, how much she wanted to run! It was embarrassing, especially since she knew for a fact that Fred couldn't have feelings for her, there was no way, which meant he only wanted her for that! Oh the nerves of that wizard, she was going to hex his so manly parts off of him when she could! "What do you think? Worth a try?" He was smirking now and wiggling one eyebrow and still holding her hand!
Then she heard something shattering to pieces down there, then another shriek, which made Mrs. Black join in. She could either run and shut the door in Fred's face, to arrive in the middle of another loud family quarrel – or she stayed.
"Oh the nerve of you!" She shook her head. "I'm not that kind of girl! I don't want any part in your games! I know how you treat your girls!"
"Well, that's a good thing," he interjected, "for you know I make them satisfied."
"I mean you only use them for your benefits and kick them out when your attention wanders elsewhere."
Fred shrugged, his uncaring attitude further annoying her. "Perhaps that's what I do, but I don't make promises either. Nor will I make promises to you. It would be completely casual."
"I don't want casual. I'm not experienced at all, and I... I believe in love."
"Love is bullshit."
"It's bullshit because of the likes of you!" she raised her voice, which produced a laughing fit from Fred. "What?"
"Don't you see? We came to hide from the arguments, and we are currently having one!"
Hermione so much wanted to smack his head, but she felt her lips tremble, and she burst out laughing too. After a while, when they both calmed down, Fred continued their conversation.
"See? This is the point, to enjoy ourselves. Laughing makes frustration go away."
"I don't really see the connection," Hermione admitted.
"What do you think sex is?" Fred asked with a serious expression out of the blue. Hermione blinked, and then tried to define it:
"It's... it's a proof of love, I guess... You have to be sure to find the right person, though. But then, I think it would be something great?" Fred snorted. "Like... earth-shattering, heartbreaking, overwhelming and the like? I suppose?" Fred snorted again.
"What if you don't find the right person?"
"I want to believe I will."
"Fine. Believe what you want. But believe me, it won't be earth shattering at first. Sex is a bodily function, produced by the cooperation of two people, and it can be very awkward at times; not just the sex, but the cooperation, don't you think?"
Well, he had a point.
"Yeah, love is all nice and good, but sometimes, sex is just sex, an action, nothing more. It's fun. It helps to pass the time. It also requires another person, so you're not alone. It's making you understand your body better. It helps to reduce stress, as I already said. It's also something that you do in privacy, so you are out of the way of trouble." The corner of his mouth twitched cynically. "It increases your creativity. It's also fairly simple; you don't really need any special tool. Well, that's a possibility, too, but let's not rush things so." He was counting down the points on his fingers, and Hermione felt mesmerized. She heard the conviction in his voice, she knew he was making real, sensible points to convince her (which meant he had planned this), but the only thing capturing her attention were his fingers. How would it feel, the touch of his fingers? The things he could do to her? His lips... Still talking. Oh, he stopped; he was chewing on his lip nervously, and she was staring at it...
"You only asked me because you had no choice, right?"
Well, this was not a question she should have voiced, she could tell by his flushed expression. She ducked, and saved him from the answer.
"Well, at least you are the more handsome twin, so... actually, what should I do? Is there a handbook, or will you show me..."
Fred was already kissing her, accidentally crashing their teeth together.
"Oops, sorry," he apologized, stepping back.
"Ouch!" she looked at him in mock hurt. "It's good that I've gotten my teeth smaller, but I think this size is quite alright, thank you!"
Fortunately, he caught on, and stretched his hand toward her. "Wanna tell me that story on the mattress?"
She did, keeping a few breaks to otherwise occupy her mouth.
.
"This is how it started," Hermione summed up, shaking her bottle. "It's empty however I try to look at it. Would you mind bringing me another one?" she smiled sweetly at Charlie, who complied without a word. They settled back to bed.
"Our little 'stress relief therapy' continued for almost six week; until we had to get back to school. We met up in the attic, made it our nest," she chuckled. "Our love-nest, to be exact. Oh, if your Mum would ever know!" She couldn't stop chuckling after she imagined a very flustered Molly Weasley, finding the pillows and candles and all that pink fluffiness... "Fred wanted to deeply ingrain in my mind that sex is fun. Sometimes, we made... Well, on most occasions, we made silly things, like, making the whole room pink, lighting a lot of candles and covering everything with rose petals. Fred was declaring his undying love and in the middle of his detailed confession about his ardent feelings, he grabbed a candle, and managed to set the petals and additionally the whole room on fire." Charlie joined in the laughter. It was so typical Fred; though the love confession? Charlie taught him to avoid the use of this word.
"Yeah, he was convincing, and he only needed a couple of days to lure me to bed," she made a funny face. "I tried so hard to resist, but... what was the point? When I talked about it with my mother the next summer, well, she said I should do it with someone I can trust. Imagine her face, when she had to adjust her sentence: 'I hope you did it with someone you can trust!'"
She was giggling again, Charlie noted. Curious, he never took her for a giggler, especially after mentioning her parents, but they were talking about Fred and fun, so he could overlook it. He'd see how she reacted to the others. Fred, after all, happened four or five years ago, at least.
"Some would call me a slut since I wasn't even sixteen then, and people often talk maliciously. I'm sure that by hearing the story the tension didn't seem to be so huge, but it was, and I feel I was right about doing it, and in the end, it really was fun! We had our little hiding place, and our world was perfectly fine this way. I'm not saying we were in love then, but it was something that we had, and didn't need to be shared. Then, we went back to school to discover that Madam Toad was now sitting on our neck, trying to ruin everything we held dear. Stress, again. It's all Voldemort's fault, you know," she realised. "If the news of my affairs ever reaches your Mum, please, help me reason that it was all Voldemort's fault. Seriously," she repeated, and he nodded, fighting his cheerfulness.
"So you were practically together for all summer, and continued at school?" he returned to their original topic. There was something here which she wanted to avoid.
"Well, sort of. Once or twice or more we met, but there were these other girls, and Fred always made it clear that he didn't get attached. He encouraged me to do the same, and..."
"You did!" Charlie was triumphantly pointing his finger at her. "That's my girl!"
"Not yours, actually, but I'll let it slip" she corrected. "I perhaps slept around a bit, not much, but a bit. I even used it as a means of avoiding detention, uhm, ireallydontwannatell" She really didn't want to mention any details about that year. After the fiasco with Fred (that was a really awkward conversation, since they both knew that they were both involved emotionally), she tried to be a good girl. She failed. At the DA, she met new people; then Draco Malfoy once caught her at night, when she was trying to cool off a bit, and – strictly in frustration – she maybe gave him a bit of a smooching, him ending up pressed between the wall and a wand-wielding Hermione. Meaning her wand, for the moment. No, that was a story which Charlie would not get to hear, though Hermione was pretty proud of herself. She killed two birds with one stone: her frustration problem got handled spectacularly, and she entered some sort of protected status by constantly pleasing Malfoy. Also, she could be sure he would never tell anyone, and they sure as hell had never been close to fall in love.
"He left school early," Charlie tried to turn her attention back to the topic. She shook Malfoy out of her head, smiling nostalgically.
"Yeah. I think we were avoiding each other after that." She wore a faraway look now, and Charlie furrowed his brows. She was again insinuating something more happened, but he was a patient man. He had a hunch that he would know by morning. "Although naturally, we had to run into each other at your family events, but for a while, nothing happened between me and your brothers."
"So who's next?"
"George."
