A/N: Got you guys another chapter. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or anything else in here.
Hermione opened the door to the room she and Ginny had shared over the summer holidays, hoping to quietly put down her trunk. While more cheerful than being here during the summer, being here for Christmas was still not her idea of a perfect holiday. She missed her parents.
"Hermione?" she heard Ron's voice as she opened the door. He was sitting on Ginny's bed with her, and they looked like they were discussing something serious. Hermione supposed that it might have something to do with the fact that their father was still in St. Mungo's. That was why she was here after all, instead of with her family.
"Hi," she said, trying to look cheerful, yet sympathetic at the same time. She put her trunk down by her bed. "How are you all doing?"
Ron shrugged. Ginny came over and gave Hermione a hug, which Hermione was thankful for. "Dad's going to be alright," Ginny said, after releasing Hermione. "They just need to close the wounds, but there isn't any immediate danger anymore. I'm glad you're here, though," she said, a worried tone in her voice.
"Harry thinks he's possessed by You-Know-Who," Ron said from his spot on the bed. "And it sort of sounds like everyone else thinks he's possessed, as well."
Without being able to help herself, she looked at Ginny. Ginny had been possessed at one point. Wouldn't she be able to tell if Harry was going through the same thing? She was wondering how best to phrase this question, but Ginny answered it for her.
"No," she said, sighing. "I don't think he is. But honestly, he won't talk to anyone. Just sits in his room."
"I'll go talk to him, then," Hermione decided, as she had been looking for a reason to get out of the room. Not that seeing that Ginny and Ron were alright wasn't important to her. But she knew who she really needed to see.
"Good luck," Ron muttered, and Hermione took that as her cue to leave, hurrying out of the room.
Once in the hallway, she looked at Harry's door. She knew that she really did need to talk to him. Harry was seeing into You-Know-Who's mind and that had to be incredibly frightening. Especially because she suspected that Harry was probably going to be important in defeating him in the end.
Hermione lingered by Harry's door for a moment, unsure of what to do. But then, quickly, before she could properly think, she walked forward into Fred and George's room.
They both looked up, surprised to see her there. They had both been sitting on the same bed, deep in conversation with each other. Neither of them looked particularly happy, which caught her off guard. Not only was that disappointing, as she had missed Fred so much and had really been worried about him, but it also made it hard for her to tell them apart.
"Oh," one of them said, standing up. "Didn't know you were coming." He came closer to her, his eyes revealing a slight annoyance at seeing her.
Hermione checked to see if the standing twin had that dark freckle under his left eye. He didn't. It was George, which she was glad about. She wasn't sure what she would say if Fred had been talking to her like that. "Sorry," she said slowly. "I wrote to your mother yesterday, asking if I could."
George shrugged and left the room without another word. Fred was still sitting on the bed, not looking her in the eye.
Hermione frowned. "Did I do something?"
"Hm?" Fred said, looking up. "No. Sorry. We're just worried, is all." His voice was sounded terrible. He sounded completely miserable; Hermione had never seen him like this. She immediately went to him, sitting next to him on the bed. Without a word, he lowered his head onto her shoulder, and wrapped his arms tightly around her. "I missed you," he whispered in her ear.
"I missed you too," she whispered back. She lifted her hand to stroke his thick hair, feeling how coarse it was under her fingers.
"I wished you were here that night," he muttered. "It was terrible."
"I know," she said. Hermione wondered if he was going to cry. She knew that if her father had been attacked by a snake, she would cry. But Fred was, obviously, a man and therefore less likely to show emotion this way.
"He's going to be alright, though," he said. "It'll be okay." He sounded as though he was convincing himself.
"Yeah," she murmured. "He'll be fine, Fred. Everything's okay." She stroked his head and pulled him even closer to her. She felt very protective of him in this instant, and angry at Voldemort for doing this to someone that she cared about.
After a few moments of sitting in silence, Fred sat up. His eyes weren't red, as she had expected. He just looked tired. "I had that dream again the other night," he admitted.
Hermione racked her brain for a dream Fred had spoken about. "You mean that one that the Boggart turned into?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Where Ron and I are holding hands?" she asked, trying to remember the details of the dream.
"It's not so much that," Fred explained. "At first, all I can see are stars, like I'm lying on my back outside, and then you two are there, crying."
Hermione thought that of all the nightmares she's ever had, this one did not sound too horrible. "Terrifying," she said, trying to sound serious.
Fred smiled for the first time. "I know," he said. "I'm really sounding like a two year old who had a nightmare. I know."
Hermione shrugged, slightly embarrassed that he had seen how lowly she regarded this dream. "The scary thing about nightmares is the feeling they give you, not really the content," she said. "You're afraid of me leaving you for your brother. Sounds perfectly natural, given the situation we had at the end of last year."
Fred nodded. "I guess," he said, sounding as if he didn't want to discuss the topic anymore.
"So," Hermione said, quickly, trying to change the topic. "Why did George just look at me like I was a piece of dirt?" She really wasn't too bothered by this, but was curious, none the less.
"Oh," Fred said, sounding surprised and uncomfortable. "You walked in on us at the wrong moment. We were discussing something… stressful."
"What?" Hermione was now suspicious about the way he had blown off that question.
Fred hesitated. "Leaving school."
Hermione's mouth fell open. She couldn't understand. "But… you have N.E.W.T's!"
Fred smiled. "Of course that's the first thing you think about," he said, squeezing her hand. "Exams. Hermione, have you met me and George?"
"You don't care enough about exams to stay for them?" Hermione nearly shrieked. Fred couldn't leave school. It was important. Didn't he realize he needs school to do anything in life? "You can't just stay six more months and finish? What was the point of staying this long if you're just going to back out?"
"Shh…" Fred hushed her, gently touching her cheek. "I told him we should stay. For all those reasons, and a few more. Relax."
"But why would you even-"
"Because Umbridge makes life hell for us there, that's why. And we almost have the shop together, so we don't really need school for that anyway. And we've never really enjoyed it the way that, I dunno, you enjoy school," he explained, a teasing smile on his face. "But we're staying," he added quickly.
Hermione was relieved. She couldn't remember what school would be like without Fred there anymore. She needed their weekly visits to the prefect's bathroom to keep her sane, she felt. "Good," she said.
Suddenly, Fred seemed to realize that she was in his room. "Hey, didn't anyone see you come in here?" he asked, anxious.
Hermione was a little taken aback at the change of tone. "Well-no. Except George. I figure he knows though, right?" she asked, suddenly worried that George didn't know.
"Yeah, but didn't anyone else see you? Ron and Ginny have to be somewhere."
"I just saw them," Hermione explained. "They're in Ginny's room. They didn't seem me come in here, I told them I was talking to Harry." She felt a pang of guilt. She really should be talking to Harry.
Fred frowned. "I think that boy has gone completely bonkers, so you know," he commented, putting his head back on her shoulder as if the discussion was settled.
"Yeah," Hermione agreed, slowly standing up. "I actually should go talk to him, though."
Fred looked startled. "Oh. Of course you do. I'll catch you later, shall I?"
Hermione felt another pang of guilt, this one for the opposite reason. "Well, he really does need to talk to someone right now," she said, logically.
"Yeah, he does," Fred said with a smile that Hermione recognized as a fake smile. "Go."
She thought about staying. She thought that she could say, "Forget Harry," and cuddle with Fred for hours and no one would ever notice. She thought she could put this whole business of You-Know-Who out of her brain for a while and deal with her boyfriend.
But she couldn't. She leaned down and kissed Fred on the forehead, and left, not looking back. She approached Harry's door and knocked before entering, trying to clear her head of the conversation she had just had.
A/N: Hope you liked it. Please review!