The first time Hermione and Fred met, everything changed. It was on the Hogwarts Express the very first year Hermione had attended the school. Hermione had been extremely nervous standing on platform nine and three quarters, though she tried her hardest not to show it. The platform was teeming with people, luggage and the occasional pet cat wandering round eyeing up caged owls. It took ten minutes for Hermione to finish saying goodbye to her parents and step onto the scarlet train that was almost ready to leave. The first thing Hermione did was change into her robes. She'd seen a couple of others already in theirs and was eager to put her own on. She the searched for somewhere to sit, finding an almost empty compartment, the only occupant was a chubby, dark-haired boy who held a toad. "May I sit in here?" Hermione asked, poking her head around the compartment door. The boy looked up at her shyly and nodded, "Uh sure." He said, his voice squeaking slightly from nervousness. Hermione pretended not to notice and with a smile, she sat down opposite him. The train juddered into motion and it wasn't long before the world was flying past the window.
"I'm Hermione Granger." She said politely holding out her hand for the boy to shake. The boy moved the toad to one hand and shook Hermione's outstretched hand with his now free one. The toad took this opportunity of a looser grip to jump from the boys hand and hop quickly out the compartment door that Hermione had left slightly ajar. "Trevor!" The boy shrieked, startling Hermione slightly. "Better catch your toad, Trevor." Hermione said and the boy began to shake his head. "Trevor's my toad, I'm Neville." He said, slightly distraught as he quickly went to the compartment door to capture the escaped toad. Hermione felt a little responsible for the toad's escape as Neville exclaimed, "He's gone!" Hermione stood up from her seat and went to join Neville at the door, it was true, the toad was no where in sight. "Don't worry, Neville, I'll help you look for him."
The two set off in opposite directions down the train in search for the missing toad. "It couldn't have got far." She mumbled to herself. Hermione began to check the different compartments, earning some strange looks from the other passengers on the train. At one point she thought she heard a croak from the next compartment along but when she went in to check she couldn't see any sign of Trevor. "Has anyone seen a toad? A boy name Neville has lost one." She asked the two boys that were sat in that compartment. "No." One of them – a tall, redheaded boy – replied shortly. Hermione noticed he held a wand in his hand, "Oh, are you doing magic?" She asked a little more interested, "Let's see then." She said; a rather proud smile on her face. The boy said a few words and pointed his wand down at a rather pathetic looking rat that sat rummaging through sweets on the boys lap. The spell startled the poor rat but other than that it did very little. The redheaded boy looked over to his dark haired friend and shrugged. "Are you sure that's a real spell?" Hermione asked and earned a slight scowl from the redhead. "Well it's not very good, is it?" Hermione said, holding back a laugh with a smile. "Of course, I've only tried a few simple ones myself but they've all worked for me." She strode into the compartment and sat opposite the shorter, dark haired boy. "For example," She said and – startling the boy – pointed her wand to the centre of his broken glasses.
"Oculus reparo." Hermione said rather proudly, the boy's glasses immediately repaired themselves. Both boys looked at Hermione startled and rather impressed. "That's better, isn't it?" She said putting her wand away once more as the boy took off his glasses to inspect them. It was then that Hermione noticed the scar on the boy's forehead. This lead on to introductions before "You two better change into your robes." She suggested, "I expect we'll be arriving soon." Hermione stood up from her seat and headed to the compartment door. "You've got dirt on your nose by the way, did you know?" She said to the redhead, whose name she now knew to be Ronald Weasley. "Just there." She said pointing to the right side of her nose. With that, the bushy haired girl left the compartment to continue her toad search. She hadn't known back then that these two boys would become her two closest friends.
Wandering a little further up the train, checking other compartments as she went, Hermione opened the door into another compartment. "Have any of you seen a toad?" Hermione asked as she her eyes searched the floor. A dark skinned boy shook his head and said "Nope."
Hermione was about to leave when one of the other boys spoke up. "Why in the name of Merlin would anyone have a pet toad?" He asked "Least of all a girl."
"Oh, it's not my toad, it belongs to Neville…" She replied, trailing off as she looked up into the deepest pair of brown eyes she'd every seen. The boy had red hair and was smiling at her in a way that for some reason made Hermione blush. "Hello," The boy said "I'm Fred, third year and resident prankster at Hogwarts." Hermione smiled back. It felt like butterflies were fluttering around her stomach. "Hermione Granger. First year." She replied.
"'Scuse me shorty." Another boy's voice said from behind her and looking over her shoulder she found herself looking at a face almost identical to the one in front of her; though this one didn't seem to affect her as much as the other had. Hermione took a step out of the way and the boy who must be his twin stepped into the compartment and sat down. "And this is George." Fred said, "My twin and partner in pranking." At that moment the train juddered to a halt and masses of students began to leave their compartments and exit the train. Hermione was thinking about how she wanted to get to know Fred better when she heard her name being said. "Are you coming Hermione?" Fred said, holding open the compartment door. She nodded and the two left the compartment and parted ways on the platform.
"Did you find him Hermione?" A frantic looking Neville asked as he approached her. She shook her head, "I'm sure he'll turn up Neville." She said and the two walked towards the largest man Hermione had ever seen…
"'Mione?" A girls voice dragged Hermione out of her thoughts and she found herself face to face with Ginny. "Hermione where has your mind been?" The redheaded girl asked, "You've been in a world of your own for the past week." She exclaimed. Hermione shrugged, it certainly didn't feel like a week had passed since she broke up with Fred. "I'm worried about you 'Mione." Ginny continued a genuine look of concern on her face. The two were sat in the library, surround by books Hermione had taken off the shelves. "I'm fine Gin." Hermione shrugged and flicked the page of the book that lay open in front of her. Ginny shook her head. "You are not. Tell me what's going on." She demanded. Hermione didn't want to fight with Ginny and after a few more back and forths she eventually sighed and covered her eyes with her hands. She explained the relationship she'd been having with Fred and how he'd hooked up with other girls while they were together and well, everything. Ginny didn't understand it at first but after a moment it all really sunk in. "I'm going to kill him!" She said raising her voice loud enough to earn a warning from the librarian. Hermione protested Ginny's want to confront Fred but the younger girl wasn't even hearing her as she stormed out of the library in search of her older brother. Hermione packed away as fast as she could without getting told off by the librarian and followed Ginny out.
I am so sorry that you had to wait this long for the second chapter. I have really got no muse for writing at the moment but hopefully it's not too sucky. Thank you for all your reviews for the first chapter, they really helped me through when I had no will to write at all. Please review this chapter too? ~WeWereJustChildren