A/N I was so proud of you guys for the sheer amount of reviews but you kind of petered off. Sorry about not updating right away, school started and I've been crazy busy with work. Anyone who reviews gets an outtake. From… Fred's trip to Scotland?

The next day, Hermione woke first. She carefully extricated herself from the bed and went into the kitchen to begin making breakfast. There was talking to be done, and she felt it might be easier if everyone had already eaten. She put on a kettle of water to make tea, and pulled a carton of eggs and some bangers from the fridge. She started to cook, her mind elsewhere.

She wouldn't lie to herself, she was nervous about the conversation that they needed to have. She felt a little bit more reassured about Fred's feelings after the ring he had given her, but the signals coming from George were much harder to read. Fred had no filter of really any sort, and was often saying whatever was on his mind. George, the more emotional of the two, often kept his thoughts to himself. He had no qualms about telling her that he loved her, but he often wouldn't put into words his feelings unless Fred or Hermione told him first.

There were any manner of things that could come from the twins today, and she had no clue what could come from the conversation. Had they decided that their relationship had been better before she entered it? She felt like she was being suffocated in her nervousness, and she leaned back against the counter heavily, taking a deep breath.

George was the first to emerge from the bedroom, eyes half shut. He sat down heavily into one of the kitchen stools and ran a hand over his face and through his face, before rubbing his eyes with a yawn. She slid him a cuppa with milk, and turned to go back to the stove. George had time to drink three cups of tea before Hermione finished cooking, and Fred emerged from the bedroom.

They ate in a relative silence, no one quite wanting to start the conversation they all knew they needed to have. When they finished eating, they all sat there, not moving. Finally, finishing a fourth cup of tea, George stood and gathered the dishes, putting them in the sink and waving his wand, setting the charm on the sink to work. He poured another cup and sat back down at table.

"George," Fred started. "Before we can talk about us, I think I need to tell you about something. Yesterday, Hermione was going to Flourish and Blotts when Crabbe and Goyle, I'm sure you remember those pricks, pulled her into an alley, and blamed her for the fall of the dark lord. God knows what they were going to do to her, but luckily Draco Malfoy found them."

"Luckily?" George blurted out. "What could be lucky about Malfoy finding them?"

"Draco saved my life," Hermione said. "If not for him, I could easily have ended up broken out there on the street, or dead."

George let his head fall into his hands. "I'm sorry love. It's just that we've spent so much of our lives with him saying things to all of us… things that he carefully picked to hurt us. But knowing that he is the one who saved you from what sounds like nearly certain death… I can't say that I'm not thankful to him."

Hermione nodded, and George reached over to lightly squeeze her hand.

Fred ran his fingers through his hair and lightly tugged on the ends, looking at the strands woven between his fingers. "What do you think is wrong with us? Because honestly, I think we skipped the good part of our relationship. You moved in with us, and then a few weeks later we more or less jumped straight headfirst into our relationship. I feel like we never really went through the whole courting phase. Everyday we're learning more about you, Hermione. There is so much I still don't know about you, and it's overwhelming. What's your favorite flower? Would you prefer if we bought you dark or milk chocolate?"

Hermione shook her head and set down the cup of tea she had held in both hands. "Those things don't matter. But poppies and milk chocolate, incidentally. George, what do you think?"

George finished yet another cup of tea and pushed it away from him. "I have to say that I agree with Fred. We just jumped headfirst into this, and we really don't know each other. Even though Fred and I were… together… for a brief while before we met you, I still know about him more in a brotherly sense than anything else. I feel almost like we need to start our relationship over, trying to forget the things that have happened in these past couple of days."

Hermione nodded again, playing with her fingers. "I think that I should move out. Temporarily, at least. You've been paying me way more than my job is worth, so I can afford to get a place for a while. Maybe we could set up a sort of timeframe, you know? Like… we'll spend X amount of time thinking about if we are positive we want to proceed, Y amount of time living apart, and Z amount of time restarting our relationship."

The boys nodded. "As much as I don't want that to happen," Fred said. "You do have a point. I think that living separately would be a good idea, at least for a little while. I could send out some letters and get you unblacklisted so you could actually find somewhere to go. What kind of a timeframe are you talking?"

"Maybe spend a couple of weeks just thinking about this, then if we decide to proceed, how about 6 months to a year living separately?"

"That sounds reasonable to me," George sighed, lightly scratching his jaw. "But there is a slight problem. Fred and I would still live together. I think it might be a good idea if we add a second entrance to the flat, maybe add a second kitchen and bathroom, get rid of a couple of doors. Essentially turn it into a duplex. I hardly think it's fair that we take time to think things through with you living somewhere else while Fred and I continue sleeping in the same bed."

Fred smiled lightly. "In 25 years, I've only slept alone about 100 times. Things are about to get significantly more lonely."

"How do you think I feel?" Hermione whispered. "At least you two would just be next door to each other. God knows where I'll be able to find a well priced flat."

"Do you want to just sod the whole thing?" Fred asked, resting his head against his hand, lightly tugging on his hair with the other.

"No," said Hermione. "I really do think that if we keep going like we are now, we might find ourselves damaged beyond repair. I want this, you, more than anything, and I don't want to risk anything damaging that."

"When do you think you'll be leaving?" George asking, lightly grasping her hand.

"As soon as I can find somewhere to go."

"Well," asked Fred, "before you do can you help us sort out the mess with making this into a duplex? You've always been much better at Charms and Transfigurations."

The three spent the rest of the day working on the flat. She added an entrance on the opposite end from the usual one, and added another kitchen and bathroom for Fred, removing the hallway and moving the bedroom door to open off of the sitting room. It took her a little while to get the work done, what with the boys debating over who would keep what.

"Honestly," she'd said. "It's not like you're getting divorced."

But no one said much of anything after that, all of them knowing that that metaphor was all too accurate.

At about half past five, Hermione left to go to go out and get groceries for dinner, and pick up the day's issue of The Daily Profit. She was walking back to the boys' flat with an armful of groceries when she felt a hand touch hers. The hand slid a bag of the groceries into their own, and fell into step beside her. "Do you realize that it's not exactly safe out here for you right now?"

She looked over to find Draco Malfoy, a cigarette in one hand and her groceries in another. "I'll walk you back, again. I'd hate for something to happen to you after I went through all that work to safe you in the first place. Where are your weasels?"

"At their house," Hermione said with a sigh, ignoring the fact that he was still calling them names. "We've hit a bit of a… rough patch… and I'm going to need to be finding a new place to live. Effective nearly immediately."

Draco took a drag of his cigarette and turned his head away from Hermione to exhale. "I'm not sure you would much appreciate this, but the Malfoy estate owns almost as much land worldwide as the queen. And of course, a large majority of it is in the UK. All of our real estate is not huge manors and sprawling gardens. There are actually quite a few cottages, homes, and condos. Until you work things out with the… Weasleys… I could give you the means to live in a fully furnished, beautiful place to live."

Hermione quickly looked up at him, and he looked down at her back, before turning his head to take another drag from his cigarette before tossing it in front of him and crushing the butt with his boot and they crossed over it. "What would you be getting out of it? I've known you for years, you've never done anything without knowing exactly how it would benefit you and yours."

Draco shifted the groceries to another hand and crossed the street, heading toward WWW. Beside the ally next to the entrance to the boys' homes, he stepped back, gesturing for Hermione to walk up the stairs first. She pushed the door open and walked inside, turning back when she realized that Draco was still standing in the doorway. When she looked at him, he held the bag of groceries out to her, but she rolled her eyes and headed into Fred's half of the apartment.

She set her bags on top of the range and began to unbag the groceries so she could make dinner, realizing that the chicken was in the bag Draco still had in his hand.

"Draco? Could you bring that?"

Even from the kitchen, she could hear the overdramatic sigh he let out. A few seconds later, he walked into the room, arm of groceries extended dramatically. He handed them to her before sinking heavily into one of the chairs at the counter.

"Don't look so put out. If you thought that was excruciating, then wait until you get a load of what I have you do next."

His head swiveled over to look at her, his large grey eyes open almost comically. She stifled a laugh and handed him a paring knife and some potatoes. "Skin and slice these like you would a Valerian root."

He frowned so deeply that it looked like the corners of his mouth were about to drop off of his face and started to cut the potatoes.

"I hate potions."

Hermione chuckled and tossed a carrot at him, turning back to the stove. "I don't really care. You're going to help me cook dinner for my boys, and I might even let you eat some."

"Might even let- woman, what do you think I am, a house elf?"

Hermione shook her head and took a bite of another baby carrot. "No, they complain loads less."

She felt something wet hit her neck and whirled around, to find another potato peeling soaring through the air to hit her in the face.

Hermione grabbed a handful of carrots and ducked behind the counter, carrot poised and ready to fling at the first sign of movement. There was a flash of white as Draco flew out from the other side, throwing potato peelings. They hurled the foods at each other, only stopping when a throat cleared above them. Hermione was crouched behind a cabinet door with her head poking over the top, and Draco was laying on his right side, left arm cocked back to throw.

"What in the name of Merlin are you two doing?"

"I want you to draw me like one of your French girls."

Hermione let out a snort and Fred cocked an eyebrow. "Er, okay, Malfoy. I'll get right on that, although it's a different Weasley who has most of the experience with French women."

Fred pulled out his wand a vanished the mess, putting a hand out to each of them to help them up.

"I should probably get going," Draco said quietly. "Owl me if you decide that you want to look at the property, eh?"

Hermione nodded and wrapped an arm around Fred's waist. Draco picked his coat up off of the floor where it had fallen and shrugged into it, reaching into one pocket to palm his cigarette case before nervously making eye contact with Fred. The redheaded man reached out his hand in a shake, and Draco hesitated for a moment before grasping it.

Maybe things had changed after all, Hermione thought. Although she didn't really know him all too well at that point, Hermione could easily see her and Draco becoming friends. He was, apparently, quite adept at dropping his callous exterior when he wanted to.

Draco left, and Fred picked up his abandoned knife and went back to chopping the potatoes. "What's for dinner, love? And what was Malfoy saying about property?"

"Au gratin and chicken. And I mentioned that I would be trying to find a new place to live and he suggested that I rent out one of the properties belonging to the Malfoy estate. He said he's got more of them than even he knows, so it's not like he would miss them. Is that alright with you?"

Fred shrugged. "It's not really my opinion that matters, is it? I don't ever claim to tell you what to do, but you know George might have a problem with it. We'll ask him when he gets in, yeah?"

She nodded, and he lightly bumped her hip with his, causing her to look up. He put a hand of the side of her face and tilted her head up, ducking in to steal a kiss.

"Wicked," he mumbled, breaking the kiss to go back to his chopping.

A/N Not sure where to end that, and there is as good a place as any. Review for your outtake of Fred in Scotland. Tell me who you want to see more of!