Chapter 14: The Replacement
Walking into the house Draco awkwardly sat at the table in between Harry and another of the Weasley boys. Fred walked into the living room to a sleeping Hermione.
Leaning over towards the girl Fred whispered in her ear. "Dinner time Hermione, you need to get up and eat something." The girl stirred for a moment and opened her eyes slowly.
"What time is it?" She asked groggily.
"Time for dinner, you really need to eat something." Fred smiled sadly at her. "Or at least be near people you know won't hurt you."
It took a few minutes but eventually Hermione was walking into the kitchen with Fred holding her by the waist. Everyone was excited to see the girl and made room for her to sit in between Fred and Charlie. The group all dug into the food encouraging Draco to push his way in and all talking about things like quidditch and Ginny's last year of school.
After a few hours the plates were all scraped clean and the group was all leaning back in their chairs happily.
"So Draco," Molly stood and waved her wand causing the dishes to start washing themselves. "Do you have a place to stay tonight?" The simple question caused any noise in the room to halt.
"Uh, no I don't." The blond looked around awkwardly. "I guess the mansion isn't exactly safe to go back to right now."
Molly turned towards him. "So you'll just have to stay here for awhile." The woman smiled and the grey eyes of Draco Malfoy lit up with something no one had ever seen before: happiness.
"Thank you, Mrs. Weasley." He said smiling.
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"I'm sure you have all figured out that we are in a secret mansion of Mr. Krum's that he is letting us borrow as our new headquarters." Voldemort smiled evilly at the head of the table. "Fortunately he is one of the most prominent figures in our world and can get into ministry functions without being suspicious."
The rest of the room nodded with his logic which of course would be irrefutable.
"It is a pleasure to be in such great company." Viktor announced to the room. "I haff waited so long to make an impact on the world." The evil grin that was plastered on his face was almost sickening.
"Now, first order of business." Voldemort returned to business, the same evil grin on his face. "How do we retaliate against the young Malfoy?"
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After dinner everyone moved into the much larger family room so the boys could play a game of exploding snap. Hermione and Fred sat on the couch together watching the rest of the Weasley kids (minus Bill), Harry, and Draco throwing the cards down all laughing together.
Fred held Hermione's smaller hand in his noticing that it had lost of its size and felt like a pile of bones. "Are you feeling any better?" He whispered to her kissing her forehead.
Shrugging, the girl fought back tears. She wasn't okay and they all knew that, for Merlin's sake she had been held captive and tortured. The only other people who could say they'd been through the same thing were Harry and to some extent Ginny. The rest had no clue what was going through her head.
"That seemed more like you didn't want to tell me the truth." Fred pointed out; he was just as worried but knew that Hermione wouldn't talk in front of everyone. She wouldn't want them all to see her cry. "Want to go to the tree house to talk?" Nodding Fred stood and pulled her up with him.
"Where are you two going?" Molly called across the room drawing attention to the couple.
"Mione wanted some air so I'm going to take her outside for awhile." Fred responded.
Everyone's face fell. "But Snape said not to let her out of the house." Charlie pointed out. "It's still way too dangerous for her right now."
"It's just to the tree house, we'll be covered." Fred knew that his girlfriend really needed to get out of the house for a moment at least, but they were right it was too dangerous.
Arthur shook his head no. "It's too dangerous, for Hermione and Draco. It's not a good idea for either of them to leave right now."
Knowing that his father's word was final the pair nodded. "Want to just go upstairs and lie down?" Hermione nodded again and Fred helped her up the stairs to Ginny's room.
"Let's go to your room," Fred's face must have looked surprised because his girlfriend blushed. "I've never seen it."
"Alright, it's a mess though." Hermione chuckled.
Shaking his head Fred led her up one more flight of stairs and opened the door. "You can sit down on my bed, it's over on the far wall." Letting her walk over by herself, but watching carefully Fred started moving some clothes and boxes out of the middle of the floor.
"Are those filled with things for your inventions?" Hermione asked grabbing a pillow and curling up.
Fred smiled and sat by her feet. "Yeah, there are ingredients for certain pieces to work and assembly parts." He reached out and started rubbing her leg. "Want to see our newest invention?" The excited look on Fred's face gave Hermione butterflies. "It's called the Shaking Spatula. Something that mum would hate. Basically, when it gets close to anything hot it starts shaking violently until you pull it away." Hermione started laughing, this was definitely something that kids would buy and switch out their mother's real spatula.
"Let's see if it works." Hermione pulled out her wand and heated the tip, Fred slowly moved the spatula towards the wand and they both watched as it started vibrating. When the spatula was on top of the wand it actually did start shaking and flew out of his hand across the room.
The pair started laughing hysterically as the utensil banged against the wall. "George and I are planning on opening a joke shop when we can afford it." Finally Fred broke the silence and was speaking quietly but excitedly. "It's going to be the brightest most annoying place in the Alley."
Turning towards the bed Fred saw his girlfriend had fallen asleep again curled up with his pillow, a small smile on her lips.
And that was when Fred felt it. Love.