In the few weeks leading up to Christmas, Harry and Ron began asking Hermione very intrusive questions and badgering her for answers — she'd been sneaking off so often lately (usually taking hours before she returned) that their curiosity got the best of them. And anyway, Hermione had always known they were bound to ask about it eventually. They had every right to be suspicious of her, especially since she always refused, point-blank, to tell them what she was so busy doing. She never pretended that she wasn't hiding anything; it was so blatantly obvious that any attempts at doing so would only make her friends even more doubtful. In fact, they now made use of their free time trying to track her down. They had the help of the Marauder's Map, so they always managed to find out where she was — but in all their years of knowing Hermione Granger, sometimes they still made the grievous mistake of underestimating her capabilities.

And as in all other situations before, she was always at least two steps ahead of them.

What confused them both so much was that Hermione was never in the library, where they naturally expected her to be. She was also never in the same place two days in a row, and Harry and Ron found that very dodgy indeed. Try as they might, however, they could never quite catch her in the act — because every time they approached the room where she happened to be, even under the Invisibility Cloak, they'd be deflected backwards and walk away in a daze, unable to regain control of their movements until they'd gone all the way back to Gryffindor Tower.

Another reason why they could never figure out what she was up to was because she was always alone.

Hermione and the twins had thought of the Marauder's Map problem long before they got to work; the last thing Fred and George wanted was to be foiled by the very gift they had given to Harry in the first place.

"Ungrateful prat," George had said with a disbelieving laugh. "You give him a map that shows everyone at Hogwarts exactly where they are at that exact minute — and he uses it against you! Way to show his gratitude, eh?"

Fred had then proceeded to suggest that they add some Cockroach Cluster to Harry's food when he wasn't looking. "Serves him right, the traitor," he had said.

Thanks to Hermione, however, they'd managed to spare Harry the pain of accidentally consuming Cockroach Cluster by devising this very clever solution: They would communicate by writing notes to one another. The finished note could then be vanished with a tricky little spell Hermione knew (a spell that took Fred and George about five days to master, with George accidentally vanishing Fred's favourite earmuffs), and it would simply reappear wherever the other party was. Upon receiving it, they would wipe the note blank, write their reply, and send it back. The twins had found this nothing short of amazing, and they got her a large basket of Honeydukes' best chocolate to give to her as a thank-you present.

Fred and George were now very busy themselves. With the assistance of Lee Jordan (to whom they had also confided their plans), they were giving the rest of their inventions a final test run to make sure that they were all in perfect condition, and as they were so secretive about this on normal days anyway, Harry and Ron hadn't been able to put two and two together. Still on a wild goose chase, they'd even taken to asking Ginny if she knew anything about it, pestering her when they caught her by herself or even when she was with friends. She kept telling them that she didn't know a thing, and one time Harry and Ron annoyed her so much that she threatened to use the Bat-Bogey Hex on them (Harry didn't know exactly what it did, but a look of terror came upon Ron's face and he convinced Harry to stop harassing her at once). But Hermione suspected that Ginny had her reservations; Ginny could pick up on things extremely well. Fred and George were also especially close to her, and she of them, so she certainly knew them better than Ron did. If she really did know what they were up to, she was doing a good job of not letting it on. Sometimes Hermione would catch her eye, and Ginny would smile somewhat encouragingly at her for no apparent reason.

Hermione was, of course, hard at work brewing potions and adding enchantments to the Weasleys' last firework, always making sure that she was well within the bounds of the school rules; she wouldn't have agreed to help otherwise. There were no rules against brewing potions outside of class (so long as they were not to be used improperly), but the reason she kept switching locations from day to day was so that she could never be caught by Harry and Ron. The ingredients for the potions, mercifully, were fairly simple and were included in Hermione's personal potion-making kit. She had been worried about re-experiencing her second year, during which she had been forced to steal ingredients from Professor Snape's private stores to make Polyjuice Potion with Harry and Ron in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She had actually been there just the other day, but Myrtle had paid her no attention and had carried on with wailing in the U-bend.

Today, however, Hermione was using the Charms classroom. While there may have been some rule-breaking involved in unlocking and using it without permission, this was probably the least offense she had ever committed at Hogwarts. When Harry Potter was one of your best friends, getting into trouble came as a sort of a package deal.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she was letting today's potion boil over while rereading the recipe for it in a Potions book she had borrowed from the library, which lay open on her knee. Her hair had been pulled back in a lumpy knot at the back of her head to keep it out of the way, and though the castle had grown very cold since December began, she had shed her sweater; the room was really quite stifling from the potion's fumes. This was the last potion Hermione needed before the firework was complete, and she was feeling tired but happy. It had been oddly fulfilling, if a bit exhausting.

She was just adding a couple of scoops of beetle eyes when a small, triangular piece of parchment appeared in her lap with a tiny pop — the first note of the day.

Unfolding it, she read:

"Hermione — Harry and Ron have just come looking for you. Honestly, it's getting a bit ridiculous. Can't believe it's taken them so long to ask us. We told them they were being nosy and that Fred was just talking about your wedding plans. Sent them off quickly enough. Expect Ron to demand answers when you get back. Cheers, George."

Hermione smiled wryly. Making the still-glistening ink disappear, she wrote back:

"Ha-ha. Expect me to tell Professor Sprout that you were the one who stole the puffapod flowers from Greenhouse Three to use as a corsage for the Yule Ball. The potion will be ready in an hour."

And with a wave of her wand, she sent it away.

Then a sudden knock on the door gave her a violent start, and she knocked over a jar of pickled snake scales. Fearing that it was a teacher standing outside, she got up, haphazardly throwing her sweater over the rest of the ingredients to keep them out of sight. As she walked carefully over to the door, she realized that there was no use trying to hide the potion at all. It would take her too long to get rid of all the evidence, as well as the strong smell of prunes that had filled the room.

Feeling very anxious, she leaned closer to the door squeaked, "H-hello?"

"Hermione, it's me!"

"Fred!" Hermione exclaimed, opening the door just wide enough for him to sidle in. She might have flung herself at him in relief, had her knees not been so close to giving way. "Oh, thank heavens, I thought you might have been Professor Flitwick!"

"He's in the staffroom rehearsing his lines for that play everyone keeps talking about," said Fred carelessly. He crouched beside the softly bubbling cauldron, flicked his wand, and the fallen jar scooped up the snake scales and resealed itself.

"H-how do you know?" Hermione said as Fred squinted at the ingredients hidden beneath the sweater on the floor. She was beginning to regain her composure, and she reminded herself to tell Ron that the rumours about the play were true. Well, the part about it being real, anyway; she wasn't so sure about Professor Sprout doing the waltz with a bubotuber in dress robes.

"Ah. That you will find out by this Christmas," Fred answered with a cheeky wink. "Now — how's everything coming along?"

"Really well," said Hermione, kneeling beside him and peering at the contents of the cauldron, which had gone frothy and puce-coloured. "It should be done in an hour."

"You're wonderful, you are," said Fred admiringly, beaming. "And getting more and more wonderful every day."

"Er, well, thank you," said Hermione, feeling quite embarrassed.

"I thought it would be nice to drop in and let you know that we've nearly finished up on our end, too."

"O-oh, that's great! Then do you think we'll be all set by Friday?"

"Absolutely." Fred ruffled Hermione's hair, making her bun messier than ever.

She didn't bother trying to fix it, and not only because she knew it was untameable. Fred had taken to ruffling her hair a lot these days. At first it had bothered her to no end, but she'd come to notice that it was how the Weasleys showed their affection for one another, and she could only feel pleased that they considered her as part of their family.

"Oh, sorry," Fred said quickly, noticing that he'd destroyed the bun. "Hang on —"

A few stray strands of hair had fallen loose into Hermione's face, and Fred brushed them away, tucking them behind her ear. Hermione's cheeks burned; his hand had been warm. Fred, however, didn't seem to realize the kind of effect this simple action had had on her.

When Hermione got her voice back, she said, "Um, I forgot to ask — if you came here just to let me know that you're almost done too, couldn't you have just waited until later? I'd have thought you'd be celebrating, maybe with a few tarts from the kitchens." She raised an eyebrow as if daring him to say that they had taken a few tarts from the kitchens.

"You're not still going on about spew, are you?" said Fred. Last year, both he and George had refused to buy her badges and sign up for her campaign to give house-elves rights.

"It is not 'spew'!" said Hermione. "But I would appreciate it if you listened to me every now again. Anyway, I sent the note back over to George just before you got here. Why couldn't you have written something in the note instead? It would have saved you some time."

"George wrote you a note already?"

"Yes," said Hermione, surprised. "Weren't you there?"

"I didn't Apparate all the way here, you know," said Fred, rolling his eyes. "He must've written it after I left."

Then Hermione suddenly remembered what George had told her in the note. Frowning now, her face once more glowing red with embarrassment, she said, "And what's all this about wedding plans?"

It took Fred a few seconds to work out what she was talking about, and then he blanched, his freckles standing out unnaturally on his pale skin.

"Just something he said to throw Harry and Ron off the scent!" he said hastily. "He didn't mean anything by it!"

"Oh. Of course. Okay, then."

Hermione looked away and flipped absentmindedly through the potions book again, not quite knowing what she was looking for. She didn't understand why she felt so crestfallen. Why did it matter to her that he'd sounded so offended when she'd asked? Was it beneath him to even think that way about someone like her? Well, she thought as she turned a page so forcefully that she nearly tore it out, Fred and George would only like funny girls, or someone who could make them laugh. A stuck-up, standoffish bore certainly wouldn't be good enough to meet their high standards. She was fooling herself if she thought that Fred had actually come to like her. She shook some shredded shrivelfig skin into the cauldron rather harder than was necessary, and stirred the potion so hard that some of it splattered onto Fred's trousers.

But in an effort to dispel the nasty silence that had fallen between them, she asked him, somewhat stiffly, "How's Quidditch?"

"Appalling," he replied. "Oliver isn't allowed to help us directly, so whenever he thinks we've messed up, he kind of just locks his jaw and stares at us with his eyes popping. Makes him look like he's constipated or something."

There was another very long, awkward pause, and Hermione finally plucked up the courage to voice what had been haunting her since the fateful day she'd decided to agree to all this. She felt that she would burst if she didn't bring it up sooner or later.

"It's just that — Ron and Lavender," she blurted out, sounding angrier than she meant to.

Fred looked taken aback by the change of subject.

"What about them?"

"They think… well, they think that we — that you li — no, that you and I are… are going out," she finished lamely. "A-and it's not just them! I had about six other people make fun of me for it!"

Fred stared at her.

"I had to tell them all that we weren't, since obviously you didn't bother doing it yourself! I suppose it doesn't matter to you what other people are saying!" Hermione went on, the unexplainable anger and frustration welling up inside her again. This time — though she couldn't explain why — there was a hint of what felt like rejection in there too. "How they ever could have come to that conclusion, I'll never know. But it's all your fault, really, for being so vague that day you went looking for me, who knows how many other people think we're dating!"

"Ah," said Fred, blinking rapidly. "Right. Sorry."

"As you ought to be," said Hermione harshly, turning away from him.

"But… it wouldn't be so impossible, would it?" said Fred, so softly that at first Hermione thought she was hearing things.

When Fred looked at her meaningfully, her eyes grew wide and she gave a high, derisive laugh.

"Really?" she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You would honestly like me enough to fancy me? Don't be absurd."

Fred shrugged.

"Oh, stop being stupid," scoffed Hermione. "You and I both know that that could never happen!"

"I dunno," said Fred. "Would it really be so hard to imagine, though? I can't be that bad. And I think you're all right."

It was Hermione's turn to stare. When she finally opened her lips to speak, her words came out strangled. "You're not — you're not actually saying that you —"

"Oh, God, no!" said Fred, aghast. "I just mean that it's not that I wouldn't — or that I would — or that I do — but you're — you know, I — it's —"

"Y-yes, all right, all right! I-I kind of see where you're coming from," said Hermione, her anger abating. "It's, er, the same for me, I suppose."

"It's just really weird," said Fred shiftily. "Thinking about a —" he teetered for a moment on saying "sister" "— friend as a… as a… well, you know what I'm trying to say."

Truth be told, it would have been a miracle if Hermione had understood what he was trying to say when he couldn't make sense of it himself.

"W-well," said Hermione, "I guess I've never really thought much about it until now."

They looked at each other for a very long time before they both turned scarlet and averted their eyes. The only sound in the room was the gentle crackle of the flames underneath Hermione's cauldron.

"You still haven't told me what you've come here for," said Hermione after a while.

"I wanted to check up on you. Er — you and the potion. And er, come here myself," said Fred, fiddling with his shoelaces. "George said it was fine."

Another pause.

"Actually," said Fred, now looking up at the ceiling, "he's on the same page as Ron, you know. About me having a — a thing for you. He's been getting worse. We, er, even had a bit of a row a while ago. And just now he wouldn't shut up about it when I said I was going to see how you were doing. He probably thinks I've sneaked off to snog you or something. But you know, this is about the safest we can get; if he'd told Lee it'd be twice as bad."

He shivered and shut his eyes, not noticing Hermione blush furiously when he'd mentioned George thinking that the two of them were snogging — then again, she hadn't noticed the back of his neck redden, either.

"I keep telling him it isn't like that," Fred continued, "but he won't believe me. So don't worry about it too much if he teases you. I'll knock some sense into him sometime."

"If he wants to end up like Malfoy, he's more than welcome to tease me. He should know by now that it's not very smart to test my patience."

"Don't we all?" said Fred, grinning feebly.

"I still think it's your fault," Hermione said, nudging him a little. "The way you've been saying it… Of course people are going to think something's up. Honestly…"

"I'll remember to be more careful next time. As long as you try not to hex my brother."

"I'll do my best."

"Although," he added as an afterthought, "I admit it's going to be tough for me to try not to hex my brother, too. So I won't blame you if you beat me to it."

And they were too busy pretending not to look as embarrassed as they felt that they hadn't noticed the potion slowly burning until the room turned black with smoke. Fred, acting on instinct, doused it with the nearest liquid he could find — which it happened to be sopophorus bean juice. This made the potion crackle and fizz, shooting out great clouds of ash and coating the two of them in soot. Surprisingly, this didn't make Hermione angry; she and Fred looked at each other for only a second before erupting into fits of uncontrollable laughter. It went on for so long that Hermione was eventually clutching at a stitch in her side. It was a wonder, they later said, that nobody had come to investigate who was making such a racket in there. It took them another two hours to clean up the mess they'd made, and an extra three to remake the potion. But with Fred there to talk to, Hermione felt as though time flew by almost too quickly. At one point, George had sent back the note asking them what they were planning to name their children, prompting Fred to put a spell on it so that George's hands would turn green upon touching it.

When they finally left the Charms classroom at about six in the evening with the completed potion sealed safely in a vial, their faces still smudged black, Hermione had found out more about Fred Weasley than she'd ever thought possible. She'd learned that he only liked eating roast when it was served with his mother's homemade gravy, and that he liked sleeping on his stomach, and that one of his personal goals was to get Professor McGonagall to smile.

It was quite strange to look at him now, with his shirt untucked and his collar unbuttoned and his vivid red hair sticking up every which way from trying to get soot out of it; it felt even stranger than when she had looked at him the night they'd had detention together. It was strange to look at someone you now knew, when until a little while ago he was just another person you said hello to. While Ron and Harry were like her brothers, this felt entirely different. Hermione had never got on with the twins as well as she did with Percy or Ginny, and not in her wildest dreams did she think that she ever would.

But that was only because she'd never thought they'd have anything in common, or anything to talk about. And now she thought that this wasn't such a bad thing, getting to know him. It wasn't bad at all. She was actually beginning to feel sort of happy that she had decided to help them. She rather liked spending time with Fred and hearing his jokes, although she would never admit it. For one thing, George wouldn't let either of them live it down.

And she didn't want to have to say that maybe, a little bit, she might have been starting to feel something else.


Hi, everyone! Thank you so much for all the kind messages and reviews you've given me, and I'd love to hear more from you. Fremione is one of my absolute favorite pairings. I hope you're enjoying the story so far, and I'll see you in the next update. :)