A/N: Enjoy!!

The tingle of his lips against hers.

Hermione shook her head sharply, trying to concentrate on the boring material in front of her. She could do this. She needed to do this. After all, this was her job, and it should not have taken her well over three hours to complete. She glanced down at the ledgers in front of her and sighed. She didn't want to do this.

His hands caressed her neck, running through her hair and ignoring the normal tangles he found in it.

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. One kiss. That's all it had been, and here she was fantasizing about it like a starved person. She could remember clearly Fred's face when he had finally pulled away from her. Confused, but not upset. He had helped her up from the floor, pulling her into a tight, warm hug before he wordlessly led her up to her room and gave her a gentle push inside.

She hadn't seen him since.

It had been impossible for her to sleep, despite the obvious hint that Fred had given her that she needed to rest and not let herself over analyze what had happened downstairs. She couldn't help it. It was a part of her system, and no matter what she did, she couldn't stop thinking about what she had done.

She had come between Fred and Gina. The sad part? She didn't feel a bit remorseful about it at all.

His eyes, brilliantly blue and twinklingly clear, as he gazed down at her for a moment before bringing his lips to hers again.

Hermione roughly slammed the ledger shut in an effort to slam the doors of her memories closed. She had work to do, and she couldn't be thinking so intimately about the kiss she had shared with another girl's boyfriend, who happened to be one of her best friends, who currently had a major amount of money missing.

"Merlin, this sounds like a bad soap opera," Hermione growled as she slipped a pair of socks on and padded out to the kitchen where there was probably more light and a table where she could lay the accounting books out. She noticed that George's door was closed, which meant that he had come back safely from his date with Gina sometime during the night, but Fred's door was open, and he was missing.

Instantly, panic flowed through Hermione, turning her blood ice cold in her veins. Where was he? Was he alright? Had something happened to him? It was only then that she noticed the note spell-o-taped to the door.

Hermione,

I figure that you're probably going to be up later, thinking things over, so I thought I'd write you a note to tell you NOT TO PANIC. I'm fine. I'm just out for a while so that I can do some thinking. Please don't worry, I'll be back soon.

Fred

Hermione sighed, and then grinned despite her anxiety. He knew her so well. Resolved that nothing had befallen him, she turned towards the kitchen and laid out the ledgers, beginning to go over them more thoroughly than before.

She honestly couldn't understand it. One month, the money was there, and the next, it was gone. There was no receipt for it, and there was no side note, scribbled in the twins' sloppy writing, to indicate that they knew that the money was missing. Hermione put her head in her hands and sighed, leaning against the table for support.

"Is it the ledgers or my brother?" someone asked, causing Hermione to jump in her seat.

"George!" she gasped, finding the second Weasley leaning casually against the door frame in a casual, confident way that Hermione always envied, looking tousled from sleep. She closed the ledger, eager to hide the large hole in the twins' account, and asked, "What are you doing up? Did I wake you?"

George rolled his eyes. "Why do you always think that it's all about you, Hermione?" he asked, and Hermione would have felt stung if she hadn't noticed the teasing tone in his voice as he pushed off the door frame and strode towards her. "No, you didn't wake me up. I've been awake for a while." He wagged a finger at her. "You're avoiding my question."

Hermione, still surprised to see him, blinked. "Question?" she asked.

George pulled out the chair across the table from her. "Yeah. The one where I asked you whether your frustration is with the ledgers or my brother." He grinned. "Can't decide? You can choose both if you want."

Hermione laughed as well. "No it's not your brother. It's more like my inability to count." She shook her head and then looked up at him, startled. "How'd you know about your brother?" Her eyes narrowed. "What do you know about your brother?"

George grinned broadly. "Well," he hedged, more in an effort to watch her squirm than to collect his thoughts. "I know that when I came home from dropping Gina off-" here he shuddered, "Fred was still pacing the room. He didn't even greet me, just grabbed his broom and told me that he was going out to think for a while now that I was here to look out for you."

Hermione bit her lip. "Did he seem upset?" she asked meekly.

George gave her a knowingly look but didn't tease her like she thought he would. "No, just confused. So, I went to get ready for bed and that's when I noticed the note on his door." He smirked at her. "And then I deduced that something had happened between you two, and that you'd be sitting up late tonight, trying to get it out of your head." He leaned forward, his eyes twinkling. "Was I right? Did you kiss? Please tell me that my horrid night with Gina wasn't in vain!"

Hermione laughed, put at ease by his pleading. "No, it wasn't in vain, I don't think," she told him carefully, "though I do think that you and I have caused some problems. Gina thinks she went out with Fred, Fred kissed me, and-"

"Fred actually kissed you?!" George cried. When Hermione blushed, George pumped a fist in the air. "Yes!"

"George!" Hermione hissed, worried that Fred might come back any moment and find her explaining things to his brother.

"I knew it!" George cried, completely ignoring her. "He's been so upset lately, not completely understanding all those emotions he's been having for you. Nearly bit my head off when I danced with you last night."

"What?" Hermione asked, surprised.

"He dragged me off to the bathroom to tell me to stop dancing with you," George said gleefully. "I told him that I didn't mean anything by it, and that he could dance with you if he didn't want me to." He winked. "Then I snagged Gina and didn't give him a chance to refuse. When you guys looked really content, I just seized the moment and took Gina out to dinner." His eyes now narrowed teasingly. "You're very welcome."

Despite herself, Hermione laughed. "Well, thank you," she said honestly.

George sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "Well, I'd better get back to bed," he said tiredly. "I'm worn out." He stood and pointed to the ledgers. "Don't be up too long."

"Yes, mum," Hermione retorted, but she smiled as she watched George disappear from the room.

She should go to bed. She realized that, but the gaping hole in the accounts that lay before her were plaguing her mind. Hermione reached out towards the ledgers once more, but stopped herself from touching them. She knew that if she opened them, she would feel all the more disconcerted about her ability to count.

"I'll look at them in the morning," she thought, and then, just as she was about to turn out the light, a thought struck her and she stopped.

Fred and George had done so much for her. They had been there for her, gently teasing her when she needed a break from the strict world she forced herself into. They had refused to let her pay rent, but there was one thing she could do for them….

The goblin didn't like her. That was obvious from the moment she walked up, but then again, Hermione reasoned, who did the goblins actually like? But she knew that it was partly because of breaking into Gringotts a while ago. "Does Miss Hermione Granger have her key?" he asked after she had cleared her throat for a long while in order to get his attention.

Hermione nodded and held up one of the two keys on a ribbon. "Yes," she said.

Her vault didn't have much in it, but Hermione didn't stop to think about that as she quickly counted out the appropriate amount and placed into in the bag she had brought. She stubbornly turned away from the small stack of coins that was left and nodded to the goblin that waited for her. "I need to see the Weasley vault," she said clearly.

The goblin blinked. "Does Miss Hermione Granger-"

"-have her key?" Hermione finished, trying not to sound irritated. She held up the second key, the one that the twins had given her when she had taken over the ledgers, and nodded. "Yes," she said.

"Very well," the goblin said stuffily.

The Weasley vault came up soon enough and Hermione handed the key to the goblin, who opened the door and stepped aside so that Hermione could enter. With great care, Hermione entered the vault and dropped to her knees, opening the bag and meticulously placing the money there in piles. When she was done, she left the vault without a word.

As she bid the goblins on the ground floor good day and apparated out of the bank and into the twins' flat, Hermione felt a smile appear on her lips. She crossed to the ledgers and pulled out the correct one. Underneath the last entry, she wrote one word.

Reconciled.

A/N: Wow! 107 story alerts! Thank you guys so much! You honor me by being interesting in my writing enough to alert it! Please review and tell me what you think! I really hope you liked it!! :D