Chapter 14: Snowfall and Falling Outs

The following morning, Hermione awoke to her alarm with what felt like the most horrible hangover she'd ever had.

She groaned. "What in the name of Merlin did I do last night?"

She fell back onto her pillow, closing her eyes tightly and wishing she had some hangover potion in her bedroom. Slowly, she sat back up and opened her eyes. She at least needed to find a quill and paper to write Fred and tell him she wouldn't make it in to work this morning. Stumbling over to her desk, she saw Fred's owl preening, a small package tied to his leg.

"Hello, Houdini. Do you have something for me?" Hermione mumbled as she ran her hands through her wild hair. The owl stuck out his leg and allowed Hermione to untie the package. "Thank you. If you go downstairs, I'm sure Molly will have a nice treat for you."

Houdini hooted at her, and then flew away. Hermione took the package and collapsed back onto her bed, a wave of nausea joining her headache in their mission of misery.

Hermione, the note read, I had a feeling that after your misfortune with the love potion – what love potion? Hermione wondered – last night you wouldn't feel so good. When George and I were developing these products, we had some mishaps, and they never left us feeling the best. Here's the potion we created to counter the side effects. Take the day off, and I'll see you bright, early, and feeling better tomorrow morning. –F

Hermione smiled slightly at his note, took a swig of the potion, and collapsed back into bed, too tired to puzzle out exactly what had happened.

Fred spent the day obsessing over what to do about the previous night, which was why, despite knowing that Hermione would be fine a few hours after taking the love potion antidote, he had given her the day off. He needed to figure this out. He didn't want to lie to Hermione, but he didn't want to ruin their friendship by telling her the truth either. Not to mention that George would kill him if he lost their most productive employee. She wouldn't remember, anyway…

The following day got off to a much more normal start. Hermione was still acting strangely around him, but Fred brushed it off as residual effects from the love potion, and trying to process her memory loss. She had asked about it the second she arrived at the shop that morning. He felt momentarily relieved that she couldn't remember, but his stomach quickly sunk as he realized that telling her would be his responsibility.

"What happened then? I can't remember anything from last night," Hermione had said when she arrived that morning.

"Well, you were splashed with some potion. And then you told me you fancied me and begged me to kiss you. Not that I blame you of course," Fred said with a wink as Hermione blushed furiously at his anecdote. "So then I took you back to the Burrow and you went to sleep. And you, of course, know the rest."

He'd gone forward with his plan not to tell her about their kiss, but now he was feeling horribly guilty. He wanted her to know, and he wanted her to ask him to kiss her again. He just wanted to feel her lips on his again, and not just the memory of it. He wanted what happened between them to be real – not just the effects of one of his idiotic pranks.

The day was dragging on, and Fred was avoiding Hermione as much as she had been avoiding him. She didn't mind, though, as it was helpful with her resolution to move on from the Weasley twin. And this was the last day that they would be alone before George got back from his honeymoon, and then it would be much easier to avoid him. So she worked diligently, asking as few questions as possible and keeping quiet in her corner of the back room. She was so focused that she didn't notice when the snow started early in the afternoon. She didn't notice that the normal stream of customers into the store had slowed to a stop. She didn't notice Verity leaving early, or the announcements about the blizzard over the Wizarding Wireless in the main shop.

"Hermione!" Fred said, coming into the back room for the first time in a few hours. "What are you still doing here? I thought that you left ages ago!"

Hermione looked up from the charms she was working on and shrugged. "I wasn't finished yet. And it's not time for me to leave yet anyway," she said, checking her watch, slightly confused.

He shook his head and pulled her to the window.

"There's a storm, Hermione!"

"I'll just leave now, Fred. It's not a big deal. I'll floo from the apartment," she said, still not sure why he was so concerned.

"The storm has interrupted the floo network. There's two feet of snow on the ground already, and it's still coming down. You can't apparate back to the Burrow, because with the wards up, there's too long a walk between the apparation point and the house. And besides, the Ministry has issued a no-travel warning. I thought Verity told you, or you would have heard on the radio!" Fred said, exasperated.

Hermione felt abashed. Maybe if she hadn't been ignoring him, she would have known all this.

"Well, I'll—"

"You'll stay upstairs, in the apartment with me," Fred said firmly, though in the back of his mind he worried how he'd make it through an evening with such a secret between them. "My mother would kill me if I let you travel in this. Not to mention, George and I are very much in need of your brilliance and extra hands in the shop, and I don't know what we'd do if they had frostbite." His teasing was halfhearted. He was clearly worried about the storm, Hermione thought.

"I'll just wrap up down here—"

"Nonsense, come on. The shop's closed. We'll have a snow day. I'll cook us some dinner. You can sleep in George's old bed, borrow a shirt of mine to sleep in…"

Hermione smiled tightly and nodded, thanking him for his hospitality as they made their way upstairs.

Fred poured them each a glass of wine, and they chatted as he began to make lasagna. They chatted about the Fred's family, Harry, Ron and Ginny's last year at Hogwarts, the search for Hermione's parents, and drank glass after glass of wine as Fred cooked, and then they ate. Throughout, Hermione stubbornly held her resolve to get over Fred. She said nothing more than politely friendly, and focused on not reading into any of Fred's responses.

After dinner they moved to the couch to continue their conversation.

"Outta wine, love. Firewhiskey alright?" Fred called from the kitchen, where he was rummaging through cabinets.

Hermione assented and smiled to herself through the haze of wine-slurred thoughts. With glass after glass of wine it seemed somewhere she'd lost some of the stubbornness that she depended on to keep her away from Fred. It took so much energy to avoid him, and it seemed that no matter what she did, she came back to the same conclusion. There was no forcing herself to get over Fred. She would just have to let this silly little crush run its course and deal with her feelings until then.

"So did ol' Billy boy help you out with the search for your parents?" Fred asked, entering the living room with tumblers of firewhiskey and interrupting her thoughts.

"Oh, yes! He said he has a few of his friends in Australia keeping a look out for Monica and Wendell. It was a great suggestion, thank you," she said with a smile.

Fred sat down next to her, closer than he'd been before. All he could think about was their kiss. He wanted to kiss her again. He wanted to stop hiding his feelings for the beautiful, brilliant witch in front of him.

Hermione was distracted. She absentmindedly licked her lips as she looked at him. Maybe if they just kissed, he would push her away and she'd be able to get over her crush. Probably not. But she could at least try. What could it hurt?

Why does she have to lick her lips like that? It's too much. I want to—

Hermione knew that her actions were uncharacteristic, but she just wanted to kiss him so badly. And the warmth from the fireplace and the alcohol seemed to serve only to blur her senses spur her on. She leaned towards him, and touched his cheek gently, distracting him from his thoughts. She bit her lip. She could do this. She could kiss Fred. It would be fine. Just do it. Lean—

"Hermione, wait," Fred said, stopping her just before their lips met. His voice sounded pained even to his own ears.

Hermione pulled back, blushing furiously, and feeling completely ridiculous. Stupid, stupid, Hermione. What did you really think that would accomplish? Haven't you realized by now that you're not his type?

"I'm so sorry, Fred. I'll just… try the floo. Maybe it's working again," she said desperately, moving to stand and gather her things.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down onto the couch. "Hermione, wait just one moment please," he pleaded. "You've done nothing wrong."

Hermione sat down, but looked studiously at her own lap, still berating herself.

"Hermione, I haven't been entirely honest with you."

This caused her to look up in surprise. "What do you mean—"

He held up a hand and continued. "The other night, when you were drunk on love potion... I told you that you asked me to kiss you. Several times."

Hermione nodded but kept quiet, waiting for him to continue. She didn't particularly want to think about it anymore. The mental images his story conjured in the place of her memories were painfully embarrassing.

"Hermione, I didn't just send you to bed. You kissed me, and – well, we kissed, Hermione."

Fred was quiet. He was looking at Hermione, but Hermione refused to meet his eyes.

She was mortified. She had kissed Fred? She'd kissed him and now she had no recollection of it. She'd kissed him and it meant so little that he hadn't even wanted to tell her about it.

Without another word, Hermione made her way quickly to George's room and warded the door. Fred wouldn't be able to get in, or hear her crying. She collapsed on the bed, sobbing. If only she had just gotten over him like she'd meant to. But now she had to deal with the fact that she'd gotten everything she'd been dreaming about for the past few months, only to find that it meant nothing. She didn't even have the memory of it to hold onto. She fell into a fitful sleep once her sobs and the sound of Fred's frantic, upset voice outside her door had abated.