Chapter 4: Weasley's Weather Whereabouts

Hermione would have liked to sleep in, but the excited sound of kids hurdling down the stairs of the Burrow made it next-to impossible, not that Ron's incessant snoring helped the situation. At least when she'd been sleeping in bed with him, she could roll him over, but sleeping across the room in the bed that Harry used to take was awful. She had no idea how Harry had put up with it. Until she thought of the Dursleys, at least, and realized that any loud snoring of Ron's was probably still better than his cousin's pig-like grunting.

Hermione rolled out of bed and went over to prod Ron.

"Wake up," she demanded, sitting on his bed with a yawn and poking him continuously until he finally woke up.

"What?" he asked, as he rolled over and tugged at his covers.

"It's Christmas morning," she said, tugging at his covers.

"I don't care," he mumbled, letting her pull off his covers but then burying his head underneath a pillow. "Presents will still be there later."

She looked down at him, wearing his childish boxers, which were covered in Quaffles and Bludgers and Snitches zooming around. "If you don't get up now, someone else is bound to come wake you. D'you really want to let Angelina or Fleur see you like this?"

"Don't care," he murmured. "Not as if I'm trying to shag my sisters-in-law."

She sighed and stood up. If he was still a teenager, the mere thought of either woman (or any woman, for that matter) seeing him in an embarrassing pair of boxers would have been enough to make his ears turn red, but now, it didn't even faze him. She walked toward the door, head hung in defeat, when a wicked thought entered her head. "Yeah, I s'pose you wouldn't care if they saw you like that. I wonder what would happen if George came with Angelina, though, and if he decided to take a photograph or two. Wouldn't that be a funny Christmas card to send out to all our friends and co-workers at the Ministry?"

Her threat had the desired effect, and Ron shot out of bed, scrambling to put on a pair of trousers and an old Chudley Cannons shirt.

"You're one wicked witch, Hermione Granger," Ron said, shivering.

"And don't you forget it, Ronald Weasley," she replied, pulling on a bathrobe and heading down the stairs behind him, a smile on her face.

When they got downstairs, little fingers were already tearing into the mound of presents underneath the tree, and some not-so-little fingers were doing the same. She saw George Weasley excitedly tearing into all of their presents from Mrs. Weasley, which were all Weasley sweaters, and he was tossing them across the room at their recipients.

"Is it me, or does he like opening presents more than the actual presents themselves?" Hermione asked Ron.

Ron thought about this for a moment. "I think you might be right. Next year, I'll just get him a dozen wrapped boxes that are empty."

"Think he'll notice?" she asked smartly.

Ron just smiled and walked over to give his mum and dad a hug.

Hermione saw the commotion around the tree and bypassed it, heading for the kitchen instead. She could use a cup of coffee. She'd only gotten a few hours of sleep, which she was fine with. She worked eighty hours a week when she was working on reforms that were set to go before her peers, and sleep wasn't really a part of her schedule, but she always had coffee.

In the kitchen, she saw Harry, Ginny, Fleur, and Bill at the table, already wearing their Weasley sweaters. Hermione glanced at her wristwatch and saw that it was only 7:14. How was it possible that she was late?

"Happy Christmas," she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee and sitting at the table in a rare moment where children weren't around, probably because they were being spoiled by their grandparents in the other room.

"Happy Christmas, Hermione," they all echoed, Fleur with a slightly less noticeable French accent, finally pronouncing her name properly.

"Have you all already had a chance to open gifts?" she asked them, eyeing their Weasley sweaters.

"No," Harry explained with a grin. "We'll let the kids -"

"-and George-" Ginny added in.

"And George," Harry agreed, "have their fun for now, and we'll open ours later when they nap."

"Nap?" Hermione asked. "How d'you know to plan for a nap later? They hardly look like they're willing to part with all their new toys for a bit of downtime."

"They'll tucker themselves out," Bill said with a grin. "They always do."

Hermione just smiled and nodded, unsure of what else to say. They knew children better than she did, after all. And there were so many of them already, with more on the way, Fleur, Ginny, and Angelina all being pregnant. If there was one thing that could be said for the Weasley family, it was that there were a lot of them. They were quite prolific.

She was facing the doorway and saw Fred approaching this time, carrying a maroon sweater with the initial 'H' on it. Funnily enough, it had a lightning bolt on it.

"Here," Fred said, handing it to her, sitting down in the only empty spot left at the table. "I reckon this was meant for Harry, but she ran out of maroon yarn after making Ron's sweater, so she just left it smaller."

When Hermione looked at Harry, she saw that his sweater was a vibrant blue color, her favorite, and had a starburst on it.

"I think you're probably right," she said, and everyone at the table laughed.

She removed her bathrobe and shrugged on the Weasley sweater, appreciative of it nonetheless. Mrs. Weasley's heart was in the right place, and with so many people to make sweaters for, she was just glad she was still getting one. Fleur had started receiving them after the war, and Angelina only started receiving them after she and George got married.

Once their laughter subsided, they were interrupted by eight owls simultaneously pecking at the door. Hermione got up to open the door, and the owls dispersed, four of them dropping copies of the Prophet in the kitchen, and the other four flying into the living room. It seemed that she wasn't the only one on the prepaid subscription plan, as all eight of the owls flew back out the door after delivering their mail to their rightful owners.

Hermione closed the door after the owls, and poured herself another cup of coffee. She was in no hurry to see what the Prophet was reporting on Christmas day. It was usually all fluff with advertising strewn about.

"So, what are they jabbering on about now?" Hermione asked, when she saw a wide-eyed expression on Fleur's face and a carefully-controlled neutral one on Bill's. Harry was tightlipped, staring at the front page, while Ginny couldn't take her eyes off Fred. He looked angry, chucked his copy of the Prophet into the garbage bin, and lit it on fire in an uncharacteristic fit of anger.

Hermione blinked in confusion, then walked over to her seat, where her copy of the Prophet lay. To her shock, she was on the front cover. But not just her alone. There, in a huge photograph, was Fred, his arm around Hermione, kissing the top of her head as a smile appeared on her lips. She stared at it, as the photograph continued to repeat itself, snow falling, Hermione wrapping her arms around Fred in a hug, him kissing the top of her head, her snuggling into his arms, over and over again.

Finally, she glanced up at the top and saw the Special Christmas Edition mark stamped across the top of the Daily Prophet, bold words saying, "Diagon Alley's Tree Lighting Ceremony Draws Crowd of Over Five Hundred," with smaller print saying, "War Heroes in Attendance" beneath.

Her jaw tensed. When had the Prophet reverted back to publishing gossipy drivel like this, and on the front page? She supposed that no harm was meant, as it was a special Christmas edition that always published fluff, and it wasn't as if anything bad was said about her, and without reading it, she couldn't pinpoint anything inaccurate.

Hermione read underneath the picture and saw that, indeed, nothing untrue had been said. Surrounding the picture of Hermione and Fred cozied up, there were pictures of other people at the lighting ceremony. All that had been said specifically about Hermione was a small paragraph.

Several Ministry officials were in attendance including the newly promoted Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, Order of Merlin, First Class recipient, Hermione Granger, who enjoyed the festivities from atop Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes with Owner/Operator and Order of Merlin, Second Class recipient, Fred Weasley.

Nothing was said, but the implication of a relationship was there, in a caption which read, 'Hermione Granger and Fred Weasley cozy up for an unobstructed view of the lighting ceremony.'

Bloody reporters. They were parasites. How the hell had they spotted them and managed to take a picture without them noticing? Now, she was going to get hoards of questions from everyone, and she half-expected to receive a few howlers, calling her all sorts of nasty names for going from brother-to-brother, as they would undoubtedly put it. Never mind the fact that she wasn't with Fred and hadn't dated Ron in ages.

The picture was damning, she had to say. It would give anyone the wrong idea.

"Sorry, Hermione," Fred said stiffly, getting up from the table.

"Fred, wait," Hermione called, but he was already gone, out the back door.

She threw her Prophet into the garbage bin, on top of his, and had a right mind to light it on fire herself. She sighed and ran her hand through her hair, a habit she'd picked up from Harry.

No doubt he was beating himself up with guilt for taking her there. He'd meant no harm, so there was no way she could blame anything on him. He wanted her to see the lighting ceremony, without being hassled by the public. There was no way he could know that paparazzi would find them regardless and plaster their private moment on the front page of the Prophet. Still, she knew how self-deprecating Fred tended to be. She'd had thirteen years to learn that about him.

And she knew he'd be getting harassment and questioning about the picture just the same as she would be. She wanted to tell him that there was nothing that could be done and that she still really appreciated his gesture, but she knew she wasn't going to be able to do that in the state he was currently in. He needed time to cool down, and if she knew him, he was doing so on a broomstick out back, beating a bludger to hell and back, while balancing gracefully in the air.

She blinked, as she realized that her body was flushing at the thought of him doing this. She knew him very well, indeed, didn't she?

"So is that where you snuck off to last night?" Ron asked, as he came into the kitchen and deposited his Prophet in the trash as well.

"Sorry," she apologized, as Ron took Fred's former seat. "Fred sort of apparated us off without warning, after everyone else had gone to bed."

"You always wanted to see that lighting ceremony, didn't you?" Ron asked, a smile on his face. "I remember you talking about it while we were still in school."

"Yes, actually," she said, beaming at Ron for remembering as well.

"Parasites," Ginny said in disgust, tossing her and Harry's copy of the Prophet on the growing pile of them in the kitchen's trashcan. "Can't get a moment of peace, can you?"

"Welcome to my whole life," Harry said, shaking his head.

And then, it was as if everything was back to normal. The slight awkward tension that had filled the kitchen after the owls' delivery was thwarted by her best friends shrugging off the news.

"Oh, I see," Fleur said, silkily. "Fred waz being nice. He'e I waz thinking zat zey had affections for each uzzer. My meestake."

Hermione tried to control her blush, as Fleur hit the nail on the head of what Hermione was starting to question herself.

"C'mon," Ron said, putting his arm around Hermione with a laugh. "You're really losing your touch, Fleur. Hermione and Fred?"

"Yes, that eez preposterous," Fleur said, with a smile and a sleek, raised brow directed at Hermione.

Bill didn't chime in, although he had a knowing smile on his face that mirrored his wife's, as the rest of the table laughed.

Nearly an hour had passed since Fred had stormed out the back door sullenly, and Hermione was starting to worry. Snow was falling heavily outside, and it looked like no one else cared much that he was out there. George was pitching the idea to Ginny and Angelina, who both had children inside them already doing magic, to have dueling babies. Harry had made the mistake of saying that he thought the idea would be hilarious, and Ginny was glaring at him for it. Bill, Fleur, and Charlie were now in the kitchen, discussing Charlie's latest travels studying dragons, which had taken him to Bulgaria. Charlie had engaged Hermione in conversation about Bulgaria, or attempted to anyway, although her mind was elsewhere.

It wasn't until he mentioned a familiar name that Hermione gained interest.

"Met Viktor Krum," Charlie said in passing. "Recognized me as a Weasley immediately. I'd forgotten that he'd been at Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament while Fred, George, and Ron were attending."

"Indeed," Fleur said, clasping her slender hand around Bill's. "It's hard to forget you Weasleys. Although I am grateful for zat."

Hermione couldn't help but smile at the way Fleur looked at Bill, adoration and love filling her eyes, and she focused instead on Charlie.

"You didn't meet him during the Triwizard Tournament?" Hermione asked, in surprise. "I thought you met all the champions."

"No," Charlie said, shaking his head. "I saw him compete, but my job was to deal with the dragons, not with the wizards. I only really said hello to Harry, because I already knew him."

"I see," she replied, nodding. "So how was it you met him?"

"Krum?" Charlie asked. "Me mates and I went to a local wizarding pub near Sofia, and he and his mates caused quite a stir when they arrived, since he's so famous and all. Krum didn't look pleased with the attention, but he approached me immediately and said he recognized that hair anywhere."

"How was he?" Hermione blurted, before she could help herself.

Charlie looked at her oddly. "He's good. Talked Quidditch mostly, said he was considering signed for a British or Spanish team. Said he loved his country but that the Slavic league couldn't compare. Was glad that someone was treatin' him normally. And then he asked about me own family. Figured it was just a polite question ta ask, until I got ta Ron, and he seemed particularly interested."

"Did he?" Hermione asked carefully.

"He did," Charlie confirmed slowly. "Told him Ron was fine, although he'd been a bit off after you two split up."

"You steel keep in touch with Veektor, yes?" Fleur asked silkily.

"You know Krum?" Charlie asked, cocking his head to the side, until he remembered something and opened his mouth in realization. "That's right. You two danced at their wedding."

"Our vedding was not ze first time zey danced togezzer," Fleur corrected. "The Yule Ball waz."

"Bloody hell," Charlie said. "You dated Viktor Krum?"

"No," Hermione said, shaking her head. "Of course not."

"Come on, Charlie," Ginny said with an evil laugh. "They only snogged."

"Ginny!" Hermione exclaimed, turning scarlet. "That was ages ago. Besides, I haven't talked to him in years. It became a bit of an issue while Ron and I were dating, so I stopped talking to him. Stupid of me, really, but once Ron and I were broken up, and I realized that, I didn't have the galls to start owling him again."

"Well," Charlie said, shrugging, "he may owl you. He looked giddy when I told him Ron was single, and I guess I know why now."

"How long ago was that?" Hermione asked, furrowing her brows.

"Right before I flew 'cross Europe to come here," Charlie said.

"If he doesn't, I may have to get over myself and owl him," Hermione said bravely. "We were such good friends. I'd forgotten until... until Oliver took me to an England/Bulgaria match. I sat on the English side with Oliver's parents, of course, so I don't think Viktor saw me, but I saw him. He looked well."

"He vould have said something if he had known you vere there," Fleur said confidently. "He still asks about you in his letters to me."

"Does he?" Hermione asked, in surprise. "He must not have known I dated Oliver."

The wind blew hard against the back door, rattling it on its hinges, and Hermione saw that the storm had gotten worse.

"Fred's still out there," Hermione murmured, brought back to her original thoughts. "I'm going to get him. He's going to freeze to death on that stupid broom of his."

Hermione stood up, swung her legs around the bench, summoned her coat, the one that Fred liked so much, and threw it on over her Weasley sweater, not giving a damn that it clashed horribly. She walked to the door and opened it.

"Go with her," Fleur demanded of Bill.

She didn't see Bill respond, but she felt him behind her when the door closed.

It was even colder outside than she'd thought. Yesterday when she'd gone out around the same time, the sun was shining brightly, a light layer of snow on the ground, and it had been chilly but manageable. Now, however, the sun had completely disappeared, and snow was bombarding the ground. Her feet sank into at least a foot of snow already, when she took her first step, and the wind that was blowing along with the storm blew the snow right into her face, causing her fingertips to feel chilled.

She looked out but didn't see Fred in the sky. She took another step, and her feet sank in even further.

"Do you think he disapparated?" Hermione asked, crossing her arms and shivering.

"I don't think he'd go back to his flat on Christmas," Bill said, shaking his head. "He's probably up there, where we used to play Quidditch as kids."

"You think he's still out here, even in this weather?" Hermione asked in disbelief. "I was thinking that he might have gone into the village nearby, or even Ottery St. Catchpole."

"Even if he could have found someone outside in this weather, I very much doubt that he'd fancy socializing," Bill said, rejecting her idea. "It's rare that Fred gets so peeved, and when he does, he isolates himself from everyone but George. And since George is in the living room with Angelina, I think he's gone out to blow off steam."

She nodded and bit her bottom lip, trudging forward. What sort of a freak weather pattern was going on for it to be this cold in the south of England? She rarely even saw snow like this in the north of England, where she grew up.

Taking another step, she groaned in frustration and took out her wand, flicking it toward the broomshed and Accio-ing two broomsticks from the shed. One of them was Ron's ancient Cleansweep Eleven and the other, his Shooting Star.

Hermione knew very little about broomsticks, despite being best friends with one professional Quidditch player, having received her first kiss from another professional Quidditch player, and being almost constantly surrounded by Quidditch-crazed people like Harry and Ron. However, she knew enough to know that these brooms were more than outdated and rubbish. She supposed that she was lucky that the broomshed here even had these two, as she assumed all of the Weasley children held their own current broomsticks at home. In fact, she knew it to be true. The flat she used to share with Ron held a special Quidditch room with signed memorabilia from the Chudley Cannons ("they're sixth in the league now; can you believe it?!") and a wall of different model Firebolts, which Ron's crappy Quidditch team couldn't even afford to buy for themselves.

Ginny pandered to Ron's love for the Cannons, although she was doing it to laugh at him, which he didn't seem to realize in his thankfulness. Hermione just wondered what Ron would do now that Ginny was considering making this her final season, with the arrival of her second child. He'd be cut off from the memorabilia and free tickets. Somehow, the thought didn't sadden her too much.

She snapped out of her thoughts and sighed, handing Bill one of the broomsticks and mounting the other. She kicked off, though only barely, as she almost slipped and fell into the snow.

Bill seemed to have none of the same problems she did, and he zoomed ahead of her at a speed she thought was impossible, considering the age and quality of the broom. She then reminded herself that he actually grew up with this and enjoyed it. So she followed him, gripping the worn wood of her broom tightly.

He led her to the top of a hill, where trees obstructed their view from any Muggles, although she hardlythought that anyone would be out in this storm, and even if they were, there wasn't a chance in hell anyone would be able to see through the blizzard anyway. Shecould hardly see Bill in front of her.

"Fred!" she yelled, flying upward to get a better look. It was useless to do so. She couldn't see. "Fred! Are you out here?"

She nearly fell off her broom when she felt someone prod her back. She turned to see Bill there, with his finger on his lips.

"He's hiding," Bill said quietly.

"Hiding?" Hermione asked in disbelief. "What is he? Twelve?"

Bill's lips curved upwards, and he laughed. He then nodded behind her to the forest. "There's an old tree house that Fred and George built when they were little over there. I saw him duck in there when you started shouting."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Hermione asked bluntly. "We have to get him inside. I want to get inside. It's freezing out here."

"I figured you might want to have a go getting him inside, before I do," Bill suggested smoothly.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, then flushed when she realized that he did, indeed, seem to have caught onto her little crush, if she could even call it that.

"Thanks," she murmured, turning her broomstick to face where Bill had pointed.

"I'll be inside," he said, shooting back off in the direction of the Burrow.

Hermione flew Ron's ruddy broomstick toward where Bill had said the tree house was. It wasn't until she nearly crashed into it that she saw it. It was at the very top of a tree, and it hadn't been the snow that had obstructed her view of it. There had been a charm of some sort concealing it. And when she landed on the fenced off balcony area she assumed was for landing, she also noticed that it was hardly an ordinary tree house. She saw that it'd been magically expanded, and it almost looked the size of a small flat when she touched down.

Hermione knocked on the small half-door, before she pushed it open. She ducked underneath the low entrance and waddled in, standing up straight once she was in. She closed the door behind her. She was grateful that it wasn't as cold, and when she looked up, she saw a small fire in the middle of the place.

She didn't comment on a fire in a wooden tree house. She was too busy staring at the red-haired wizard looking right back at her. He was only wearing his forest-green Weasley sweater and a pair of jeans, and he looked much more decent than she did, wearing the same pajama pants she'd worn yesterday, a maroon, lightning-bolt Weasley sweater, and the coat he liked.

She shook the snow off her broomstick and set it next to his. She then crossed the room and sat down next to him silently. He was still regarding her with a blank look on his face.

She saw his flushed cheeks and his red nose which matched his short, flaming red hair. He had a few freckles across the bridge of his nose, but it looked like he'd mostly grown out of the them with age, the way she'd noticed both Ron and Ginny had. As she searched his brown eyes, she saw that they had green streaks on the outside with some green specks near the middle, too, and she realized he actually had hazel eyes, like Harry's, instead of just brown ones.

After a short silence, a smile formed on Hermione's lips, and she said, "so I heard you came in here to hide like a big baby when you saw me coming."

"Bill," Fred growled in annoyance.

"Yes, Bill," Hermione mocked, rolling her eyes.

With the ice broken, she took off her coat and sat it next to her. Fred's fire was making this place nice and toasty.

"So, why'd you hide anyway? You should know better than to think your family's going to give any heed to the Prophet," she said, growing annoyed with him. "They don't think you and I are dating or anything like that, if that's what you're worried about."

Fred shook his head firmly. "I couldn't give two knuts about that."

"What then?" she asked. "Were you worried that I'd be upset? Because I'm hardly going to blame you for those lechers printing what they want."

He shook his head again. "No, I know you're too rational for that."

"So why?" she questioned again, poking him in the side and smiling at him. "Why did you run off on Christmas morning in a blizzard?"

He sighed and shook his head again. "I just got annoyed. There aren't a lot of things that really get my knickers in a twist. I don't get annoyed easily. More than George. Less than Percy. Somewhere in there. One of the things that annoys me is picking on people who can't defend themselves."

"I know that," she said, breaking him off. "And people getting hurt who don't deserve to be hurt. I still remember when you gave me that salve for bruises."

"Right," he said. "Another is my privacy. I grew up in a house where nothing was private, and unlike Ron, I never really threw a fit about it. I found ways to keep what I needed to keep private just private enough, but even if I was found out, I didn't particularly care. It just gave me more of a challenge to conquer, which was always fun. But my personal relationships are private. And not Weasley private. But actually private."

She nodded in understanding. He was annoyed, just as she was, that someone had encroached on a private moment and captured it on film. It hadn't been a particularly scandalous moment, like when she'd been caught snogging Oliver Wood for the first time, or when she'd been caught sunbathing topless in France. It had been a touching, private moment between friends, something for which he'd felt violated because some scumbag photographer had decided to invade.

"I understand, and I'm not happy about it either," she agreed, reaching her hand out and placing it on his knee. "I'm expecting backlash from nosy witches and wizards, but I'm trying not to think about that now. It is Christmas, you know? So let's think about the positives. Maybe I can get the original color photo and frame it. It is a rather good shot of us. Shows how gentle and affectionate you are underneath all of the mischief."

His grimace slowly turned into a smile, the glint returning to his eye. "If you get the photo, I want a copy of it, too."

"You do?" she questioned, raising her eyebrows at him.

He nodded firmly. "Even in black-and-white, you can see your cheeks are flushed. You've also got a little grin on your face, and you already know how I feel about that coat. It's a better photo of you than it is of me."

"Hardly," she said, blushing. "I'm wearing these pajama pants in the photo."

"So?" he asked, laughing. "You birds and your clothes. No bloke in his right mind even noticed your bottoms."

"Fred Weasley," she squeaked. "It almost sounds as if you're flirting with me."

"Isn't that what I've been doing for months now?" he asked, cocking his head to the side, staring at her in disbelief.

"Sorry?" she asked, gaping at him.

"Since you and Wood split," he repeated, shaking his head. "You're a girl. You can't have been blind to it. It's not like any of us Weasleys carry the subtlety gene."

Fred craned his head forward and down, until he was nose to nose with her, and he searched her eyes for a long time, before he leaned back and laughed heartily.

"You really hadn't noticed," he said, laughing madly at her.

Hermione turned crimson, opening and closing her mouth like a fish.

Finally, she sputtered, "but you're Ron's brother."

Fred's laughter died immediately, and he sighed. "Had to go and ruin the moment, didn't you?"

Her face was burning, and she pulled her knees to her chest, putting her head in her arms on top of them, making herself as small and as invisible as she could.

"Listen Granger," he requested, "girls who don't annoy me on a core level are hard to come by. You haven't always been one of them, but somewhere along the way that changed. And you're bloody good-looking, no matter what you say, or how much you try to tell me that doesn't matter, because it does, on some level, at least a bit. When you and Ron split up and you started spending time with the rest of us, I developed some of those emotion things you women preach about all the time, but I didn't do anything because I'd honestly thought you and Ron would end up together again.

"But then you moved on. With Wood. Now, I like Wood. He's a bloody good Keeper, and he's always been a mate of mine. But he's crazy to have ended things with you. You've been crying all the time since then, and Ron hasn't done a ruddy thing about it, so either he's daft, or your relationship truly is over. Either way, there was no way I wasn't going to make a move."

She peeked up at him, to see if he was serious. For once, he actually appeared to be. He was looked at the fire as he spoke, and he ran his hands through his straw-like red hair in mild frustration.

"So last week when I ran into you at the Ministry, you weren't there to see your dad?" she asked quietly. "Because I felt awful about having lunch with you."

"No," he laughed, "I wasn't there to see Dad."

"And two weeks ago when you took me to dinner, did George really ditch you last second because Angelina made him go crib-shopping?" she asked.

"No, no, no," Fred said, shaking his head. "And thank Merlin you didn't ask either of them, because George would have covered for me, but Angelina would have gone on a rant about not being 'that type' of girl. Her hormones have been impossible to deal with lately."

"Have you..." Her voice broke, and she looked down again, thinking about the Scottish Quidditch player who broke her heart and wanting to know whether Fred knew why. But she couldn't bring herself to ask, so she switched questions. "... err... seen me cry much?"

"A few times," he admitted, sheepishly.

"I'm sorry I didn't realize," she said quietly, looking away again. "It's really not you. I've just been preoccupied. Ollie - Oliver - I loved him."

"I know," Fred said quietly. "Why I haven't just gone and said I fancy you outright. Wanted to give you a bit of space. Angelina suggested that."

Hermione blushed. She'd been completely oblivious, guilty of the stupidity she accused the men around her of having for years, but she hadn't been in her right state-of-mind. It was hard for her to get over break-ups. She'd only had two in her life, and both of them had been long relationships. With Oliver, it was even worse because she never got the closure she wanted of finding out why, and a small part of her still irrationally thought that she must have done something. And to top it all off, she was head-over-heels for the wizard when he ended things. It had been completely one way. She'd had her heart ripped out and stomped on.

And now, she had Fred here, telling her he fancied her, with his beautiful hazel eyes, his goofy smile, his skilled charm and potions work, and his unexpected consideration for her feelings. She didn't know what to say, so she said the only thing that kept popping into her mind, even though she was afraid it might sound stupid.

"Last night was the first time I hadn't thought about him for longer than an hour or two," she admitted.

"When we went into town, and you got onto George and I for messing with Muggles?" he asked, a little grin on his face.

"No," she replied sadly. She'd actually thought of Oliver when they'd met the shopkeeper, who looked a bit like his mum. "It was when that photo of us was taken. The entire time I was with you, from the time we played Gobstones to when you took me home, I didn't think about him. First, I was thinking about how much fun I was having, and how intelligent and humble you are, and then I just couldn't stop thinking about how you remembered that I wanted to see the ceremony, and how warm you are."

"But then you thought about him when you got back," Fred said hesitantly.

She thought about it for a moment and shook her head. "Actually, I hadn't thought about him until Charlie mentioned Viktor a while ago, and I remembered that the last time I saw him was when I'd seen Oliver play in the England/Bulgaria match."

"What did you think about when we got back here last night?" Fred asked. "I know you've had trouble sleeping since the war and can't just pass out."

She was surprised again at how much he knew about her, just like she knew more about him than she'd realized. She wondered if she knew this much about the rest of the Weasley family, too. The only people she probably knew more about were Ron and Ginny.

"You," she admitted.

Fred turned his body to face her, and he reached out his hand, cupping her cheek. He leaned in.

"Bugger what Angelina says," he said, and he brought his lips down to hers.

She couldn't help but compare them to Ron's. His were softer, signifying that he probably didn't chew on them the way Ron did. His kiss was more probing, more experienced, and his tongue was past her lips in a mere moment. She felt his nose rub against hers, and it felt cold, while his hand and lips burned.

She brought her hand to his arm, to his Weasley sweater, and let him kiss her, as much as he wanted, because she couldn't think about anything other than his lips, and how good they felt.

Author's Note: Fluff, fluff, fluff! :D Let me know what you guys think. Haven't gotten a whole lot of feedback on this story.