Fred checked his reflection carefully. Not a hair out of place that hadn't been put there. His shirt was immaculate. His pants were pressed. His shoes were shined. His daisies were on the counter, along with his roses. Satisfied, Fred grabbed the flowers and got ready to leave.
"Fred," George called, "You're not going to go without letting me take a picture?"
"Picture kissing my arse," Fred joked.
"Oh come now," said George, "Don't you want to immortalize this moment when you, Fred Weasley, go to pick up your future wife?" Fred made a rude gesture, and George laughed. "I wish I had a camera for that one alone," he said with a mock dreamy smile. Fred apperated to the kitchen of The Burrow.
"Fred Weasley, you scared me half to death!" His mother cried. The only response was to peck her on the cheek and offer her daisies. "Oh Freddy! I can't remember the last time a handsome man brought me flowers!" She bustled around to find a vase, and Fred slipped out to find his date.
Hermione was upstairs with Ginny, trying to get her hair to behave. She had taken Ginny to Muggle London with her to hunt for the perfect dress, settling on a plum coloured dress that hugged her curves. She was self conscious about it now, she was sure Ginny must've used a confundus charm on her to convince her to buy it. But it had cute capped sleeves and made her feel very adult, so she tried to fight back the feeling her school rules had drilled into her to switch into black school robes or a jumper. Ginny had painted her nails an electric pink, and had encouraged her to add a little subtle makeup, including a nude gloss. She had added a silver necklace with dangling earrings, and a pair of black pumps.
"Anything else I need?" Hermione asked as she threw her wand and a few galleons into a black clutch.
Ginny looked her up and down, then shook her head. "You look hot," she said with a grin.
"Is it weird that I'm dating your brother?" Hermione asked, looking up.
"Not really. Kind of a surprise which one you picked, but I love he idea of Fred getting all gooey over someone I love."
"Ginny, you're sweet."
"Knock his socks off, Hermione!"
Taking a deep breath, Hermione left and started down the stairs. She had the express pleasure of watching Fred's eyes glaze over, while feeling the terrifying feeling of her heart doing a hard twist at the sight of him. Warning bells went off in her head. Too soon, too soon, too soon to feel this way, she told herself. She swallowed hard and tried to keep cool.
"'Mione, you look amazing," Fred told her, "I'm unworthy." He handed her the bouquet of pink roses and babies breath he'd brought for her, and watched her eyes light up with surprise and a dreamy look that he couldn't identify.
"Fred, they're beautiful!" She buried her nose in the fragrant flowers and inhaled. Her next move was meant to be a quick, appreciative kiss, but somehow was convinced by his lips to stay a few beats longer than intended. When they broke apart she was well aware that they both had silly grins on their faces.
The sound of an all too familiar throat clearing caused Hermione to jump. Ron was standing on the stairs looked like he had swallowed a particularly nasty potion. Hermione blushed and muttered something about finding a vase, ducking into the kitchen and out of the awkward situation.
"Ron," Fred greeted. Ron just grunted in return. "Oh come off it. It's not like you wanted to date her."
"Maybe I do now."
"Maybe you should have considered that before you said you wanted to date around. Did you expect her to wait for you to cat around before coming home to good old safe Hermione?" Ron said nothing, just stared with an ugly look on his face. "There are other wizards in the world who don't see her as a fallback. Besides that, I did my waiting to make sure you had the opportunity to date her, and you were thick headed about it and didn't do anything!"
"And how long did you wait, two weeks?" Ron shot back hotly.
"Try five years, you idiot. I was so pissed when you didn't ask her to the ball and she went with Victor bloody Krum instead when that could have been our opportunity that I pranked you mercilessly until that June. So don't come to me now with a sour face telling me I'm crowding in on your territory!"
Ron's look of surprise mirrored Hermione's from the kitchen entryway. Fred caught sight of her and inwardly swore. "Are you ready to go?" he asked her, an edge still coating his words thanks to his conversation with Ron, and embarrassment at inadvertently confessing to crush he'd had on her for a half a decade.
"Yes," she said decisively, throwing Ron a hurt look. Hadn't they settled this matter?
"Let's go." She accepted his offered arm and let him apperate to a trendier part of the wizarding London that she hadn't spent much time in, Actu Alley, at the beginning of the street. It was crowded with partygoers, shoppers, friends, and couples all for the most part looking much closer to their age than their parents. Unsure of herself, Hermione let go of his arm and glanced up at him.
"Have you really liked me that long?" she asked once she'd gathered the courage.
Fred blushed. "I won't lie to you, Hermione, I did."
"I want to say that I wish you'd asked me out then, but honestly I like the way things turned out."
"What, my brother getting jealous over you?"
"No, you prat. I just meant that now I know for certain that there's nothing between myself and Ron, and there never will be. It's just nice to know that the possibility with him won't be between us."
"Hermione... You always know the exact right thing to say. Let's go to dinner."
He showed her to a restaurant that looked like a hole in the wall, but was amazing inside. They had stepped into an indoor forest, the walls all shrubbery and vines, the tables growing out of the earthy floor, the canopy of leaves and branches above them. Even the air was humid and breezy, but Hermione couldn't fault what this would do to her temperamental hair because she was too charmed by the magic of it all. "Just when I think I'm used to living in a magical world I see something like this," she uttered, delicately fingering a bright red flower growing out of the wall.
Fred gave his name at the reception area and they were seated immediately. The service was quick, the food was to die for, and the ambiance was exquisite. They talked about everything, from Fred and George's plans to expand to Hogsmeade to Hermione's schoolwork.
"Do you know what you'd like to do after you take your NEWTS?" he asked her curiously.
Hermione shrugged uncertainly. "It's a toss up, really. I'd love to study healing but the training takes so long and I think I'm just anxious to start my life at this point. The ministry isn't somewhere I want to be right now either."
"Do you think you'd want to keep going with S.P.E.W.?" Fred asked. "Only, maybe expand it to include other groups of magical creatures?"
Hermione was surprised. "I had thought of it," she admitted. She just wasn't aware Fred had as well. "Who would you include?"
"Well, werewolves for starters. Centaurs, goblins. Maybe poll the major areas to find which other creatures might need representation, or do the reverse math. See which creatures people don't think need representation, those are probably your winners."
Hermione's jaw dropped. "That's brilliant, Fred!"
He glowed with pleasure. "It's been known to happen from time to time."
"I guess the only problem is I'm doing schoolwork right now, and I'll need to find a paying job right away. If I were to start advocating for magical creature rights it would be a non-profit likely for years. I still have all of the money from the sale of my parents house, but it's not as much when it's changed over to gold, and I'd like to buy my own house with it some day."
Fred put his hand over Hermione's. He knew that she had lost both her parents to the war - not dead, but gone. The memory charm she had needed to use to protect them erased and altered almost every one of their memories for eighteen years. She had made sure to go back far enough to remove even the memory of pregnancy. A spell like that could not be reversed without driving the two mad. They were truly better off where they were in Australia.
She had wisely used a series of charms and Fred himself actually (he was renowned for his handwriting forgery) to help pass the money from the sale of the house to her. Her reasoning was that her parents had made a killing when they sold their practice to move, and she needed financial backing. She wasn't sure what she might need for the war, if she'd have to hide out for years even. When the war ended she had been left with quite a bit of cash that she had no way to return to her parents. She had so far just been living off of the sale of the things inside the house; bedding, furniture, dishes, the piano. Monica and Wendell Wilkins had been in a hurry to drop all their possessions for the big move. As Mrs. Weasley refused to charge her rent the only time she ever spent any money was when she was eating out or, most recently, a shopping trip with Ginny.
"You could always work for the shop," Fred offered.
"The shop isn't even open yet though," she pointed out.
"Exactly! And it's not open because we need more time or more help to make products, get the store itself a usable space again, shelve products, help sell things during busy times... And we've been thinking of hiring someone to do the books."
"Would this be part time or full time?"
"Well right now we really need someone full time so that we can open quickly. Every day we're closed we're losing money. But once the store is actually open we'll only need a part time salesperson, and then the books. So it would be in between part and full time at that point. Plus, if you had more time we could always add more hours as you want them so that we can work on restocking or creating new items."
"That sounds like a really amazing deal, Fred. What's the pay like?"
"Wage laws say we have to pay 9 sickles, 15 knuts an hour. But we offer 1 galleon 2 sickles 2 knuts, about twice that."
"Why?" Hermione asked, surprised.
"Because we want to be known as employers who pay well, and we know that the cost of living is ridiculous compared to the minimum wages. It's not fair to ask any less than that to be honest."
"That sounds wonderful, Fred, though I do have two concerns." She paused, sipping an after dinner cappuccino that she'd ordered. "I wonder if George would mind me working there, and more importantly I'm worried about us working together while we're involved."
"George won't mind," Fred assured, "Though I would have ran it by him first anyway. As for you and I, I don't think working together will be a problem."
"But what if we have a fight, or break up or something?"
"Hermione, I just can't see you getting so upset as to lose professionalism, and I know that the store is the most important thing I've ever done, or ever will do. If something happens, we'll work it out." She cautiously agreed and Fred said he'd check with George, but if all went according to plan she could start immediately.
They strolled together arm in arm after dinner, enjoying the atmosphere of the night in a trendy part of town.
"I've had the most lovely evening," she said as they stopped to listen to a violinist playing for gold. "I can't imagine anything that would make it better."
"I can," Fred said, tossing a Galleon into the man's case with a wink. Taking the hint he switched to a slower, more romantic song. "Dancing." He told her, taking her into his arms.
Hermione let a little "Ooh!" escape her lips, and swayed with him. It's going to be hard, she thought, not falling head over heels in love with him. They danced under the night sky, and Hermione could hardly see for all the stars in her eyes. He kissed her when the song ended, and she felt herself slip a little more into the danger zone.
They walked a while longer, before Hermione suggested he take her back to The Burrow. "It's getting late," she told him, "And you know how your mum is." She took his offered arm and he apparated both of them to his family home.
And though he was sorry to wrap up their evening, he could at least be content with his extra long goodnight kiss at the door.