Hello all! Yes I realize it has been a REALLY long time. Reasons? Um...I've been lazy, my computer crashed...twice, been lazy. Oh and I've been working on an original short script so that's been taking up some time too. Balancing more than one writing project at the time is not fun and I have about 4 so that's what's making stuff go so slow. I promise I'll get another update out before the end of the year! lol Seriously, I'm hoping for an ever couple of weeks type of schedule. Hopefully the story and my muses will keep that schedule also. Big big thanks to everyone who reviewed. It's glad to see people are still reading it and want the next chapter! Now on to the story!

Another half hour found George and Hermione on their way to The Leaky Cauldron for lunch, Hermione carrying a little brown bag and George desperately trying to find out what was in it.

"Honestly, George," she said as they were seated. "It's just a package of stink pellets."

He just looked at her unbelievingly. She sighed and handed him the bag.

"Look for yourself!"

He took the bag from her and carefully peeked inside. Sure enough, all that was inside were stink pellets. He relaxed a little and looked up at her.

"But you said..."

"I know what I said," she cut him off. "But I couldn't come up with anything good, so I just got these to make it look like we were shopping."

"And then spent the last thirty minutes making me think you'd come up with something terrible!"

"I did, didn't I?" she said with a slightly evil, yet somehow innocent grin.

"You little trickster!" he said, sounding somewhere between amused and annoyed. "You planned it all out!"

Her grin turned into a full out smile. "And it worked. I must say I'm rather proud of myself."

"And you should be," George said as their food arrived. "It's not every day an amateur can pull one over on a professional such as myself."

"Amateur?"

"Mm hm, but maybe with a little training we could have you as good as us professional in no time."

"Well thank you, great master, but I don't think I want to make a career out of it."

"But it's such a great career!" George said. "I would even give you a job in the shop so you can watch us masters up close."

"I may have to take you up on that job offer one day," Hermione said with a laugh. "But I think I'll skip 'learning from the masters.'"

"Suit yourself," George said, taking a bite of his food. "But you'd have made a great prankster."

"Well thank you," she said, smiling at him.

George smiled back, feeling his heart race. He had no idea why Hermione's smile affected him this way and he wasn't totally sure he liked it. Then again, he wasn't sure he disliked it either.

They finished their lunch in relative silence, then George popped them back home. Hermione found it interesting that she was starting to think of The Burrow as 'home' instead of 'Ron's House'.

Hermione was laying on her bed reading and trying not to think of certain things when there was a little knock on the door.

"Come in, George," she said with a smile, loving how he knocked, even if the door was open.

"Hey," he said, popping his head in before coming all the way into the room. "You busy?"

"No. Just reading. Why?"

"Well, I was about to go for a walk and was wondering if you wanted to go."

She smiled sweetly and put her book aside. "Sure," she said sitting up. "Just let me put some shoes on."

"Alright," he said, smiling back. "I'll meet you downstairs."

"I'll be right down," she said as he left.

Smiling to herself, Hermione quickly put on her shoes and stood up to give herself a look over in the mirror.

Ugh! she thought to herself. I can't go out there looking like that! She cast a quick charm to tame her hair, then looked back into the mirror. Much better she thought, then left to meet George downstairs.

"I had no idea your family had so much land!" Hermione said, sitting on a rock and drinking some of the water George had thoughtfully remembered to bring.

"Yeah," he said, taking a drink from his own water. "Unfortunately it's mostly forest and Dad never had the heart to cut it down. He tried to sell it once, but nobody would buy it."

"Why not?"

"I dunno. I guess it would take too much to clear it. Plus there's always been a rumor that there's a herd of Centaurs somewhere back in there."

"Really?" Hermione said excitedly.

"Yeah. As far as I know nobody's ever seen one. But nobody wanted the land because of it anyway. I guess if the rumors turned out to be true, they didn't want to have to deal with a herd of angry Centaurs."

"I guess not. Centaurs can be very difficult to deal with."

"Yeah. So we're stuck with it. Which is okay by me. I like being able to walk out here."

"I can see why," Hermione said, watching a squirrel run up a tree. "It's so peaceful."

"Yeah," George said, taking a seat on the rock beside her.

They sat in silence for a while, just taking in their surroundings and listening to the birds sing high above their heads. It was spellbinding to say the least.

"Hey!" Hermione said suddenly, nearly scaring George off of his place on the rock. "I know what we could do!"

"What?" George said, sounding slightly annoyed as he tried to get his heart rate to go back to normal. "Scare each other to death?"

"Sorry," she said, rubbing his shoulder.

"That's okay," he said with a deep sigh, calming almost instantly. A fact he'd file away for later analysis. "So what could we do?"

"I think we should go look for them."

"Who?" George said, nearly asleep from the shoulder rub.

"The Centaurs!" Hermione said excitedly.

That woke him up considerably.

"The Centaurs?" he said, straightening up a little. The rubbing, which had moved over to his neck, stopped. The fact that she didn't remove her had completely made him slightly giddy.

"Yeah! We should go see if we can find out if they're really there!"

"Why would we do that?"

"I just told you, silly. And it would give us something to do for a while."

"I dunno, Hermione," George said. "It could be dangerous."

"Dangerous? George, so far in my life, I've escaped a 3-headed dog, been petrified, chased by a werewolf, fought against Death Eaters and nearly been killed in various other ways more times than I can count. I think looking for Centaurs that may or may not exist on land owned by my friends will be a walk in the park!"

"I dunno," George said, still unconvinced.

"Come on, George," Hermione pleaded. "Please?"

And then she did it. She game him those big, brown, pleading eyes and George was lost. He knew that, for the rest of his life, he'd never be able to say no to those eyes. She had effectively wrapped him around her little finger and he didn't even know it until it was too late. He was a little shocked to realize he didn't mind.

"Okay," he said with a big sigh. "We'll look for Centaurs."

Hope you enjoyed it! Remember, reviews are love!