Whispers in the dark

Chapter 37: The singing of a bird

A/N: I own nothing except my mistakes

O.W.L.s were just a month away now, and Hermione was well over her head with all the worries and stressing. Even Ron and Harry were beginning to see the severity of it, and hadn't played a single game of chess in over two weeks.

At the moment, they were just leaving their Herbology class – after having had an awfully long assignment that they needed to finish up that same class – and were now heading over to the Great Hall to study in their free period.

Lately the library – much to Hermione's dismay – had been completely packed with students who were cramming last minutes for either their O.W.L.s or their N.E.W.T.s. Hence why at the moment the Great Hall was a much quieter place to study than the library. Especially in free periods.

The three of them went and studied the second they sat down, saving their chitchatting for a later moment, the scribbling of their quills on the parchment being the only sound that filled the silence around them. Well, at least it was for Harry and Ron. Because unfortunately for Hermione, she never had a quiet moment in her life anymore.

"Of course it will be wicked, Jordan, that's the whole point of it," Fred spoke, a little too loudly for her liking. "Could you please be quiet?" Hermione hissed softly, but it was loud enough to catch Harry's and Ron's attention. They had a momentary look of surprise on their faces, but made the connection quick enough as they realised she was talking to Fred, and thus they went back to their work.

"Hang on, I'll be back in a minute," She heard him say to others.

Taking advantage of the momentary quietness – besides, perhaps, the quick inhalations of Fred's breathing, as if he was running down some stairs – she got back to her work, now having finished all her assignments and essays, and thus being able to spend all her time on studying.

The past half year the teachers had been flooding them with a lot more work than usual, but they had thankfully dimmed down now that there was only a month left to actually study. Hence why she could spend all of her time focusing on annotating and highlighting all her notes and schoolbooks.

Currently she was working on Ancient Runes, though all that was needed to do was a quick skip-through as she felt rather confident with this subject. Throughout all their classes they had been given very useful assignments that they were guaranteed on that would be coming back on the O.W.L.s, and thus she felt like she knew enough about it to not really fret herself up in it.

"Where in heavens are you, Hermione?" Fred asked. Hermione debated on whether she should answer that. She knew for a fact that if he were to come and see her, that her peace would be rather short lived. "Great Hall," she spoke softly, and this time Harry and Ron ignored her, though did stiffen momentarily in their work.

"What are you in the Great Hall for? I thought you'd be in the bloody library," Fred huffed as his breathing quickened up again. He was definitely going down the stairs. "Too crowded," was all she mumbled before continuing her annotation.

A couple of blissful minutes passed by in silence, until a certain redheaded boy came charging into the Great Hall, accidentally slamming one of the doors a little too harshly against the wall, attracting everyone's attention.

Most people just grumbled or remained silent as they got back to their work, but Hermione kept his gaze for a second longer before turning back to hers as well. Perhaps if she looked busy, he would just turn back around.

Of course he wouldn't, though. When would Fred ever do what she wanted him to do?

"Still studying, are you?" Fred asked, not bothering to keep his voice down as he promptly seated himself next to her, automatically leaning into her a bit as he glanced over at her notes.

Hermione hushed him sternly, to which he innocently smiled.

"I'm surprised you're not," she spoke absent-mindedly as she focused back on her work, dipping her quill back into the ink. "Don't you have N.E.W.T.s this year?" She confronted, but he seemed rather unimpressed as he literally snorted.

"What, those little buggers? How many times do I have to tell you, Hermione-," Fred began, but Hermione sugar-coated as she sweetly finished it for him, "you believe your future lays outside the world of academic achievements, I know."

Fred looked very pleased with her as he nodded in confirmation. "Besides, I'm on top of all my things." This time he spoke a little louder, then continued. "Would you like to be one of them?" Fred asked, a grin stretching from ear to ear as he playfully winked at her.

At this Harry's and Ron's head shot up at almost the same time, Harry's eyebrows popped up high in surprise, a light grin stretching on his lips. Ron, however, looked rather disgusted as he looked between them. "Gross," he muttered, but a hint of a smile was shown as soon as he lowered his head back down.

Hermione, on the other hand, had her jaw dropped open as she had looked around the Great Hall in a bit of a frantic, displeased to see several heads turned their way, a couple of people snickering, two of them being Seamus and Dean.

"Fred Weasley," Hermione started, but Fred chuckled loudly as he kissed her forehead before getting back up again. "Enjoy your study session, lovey butt," and with that he hurried out of the Great Hall, leaving Hermione completely astounded and several students laughing.

What the bloody hell had gotten into him today?

Though a little distracted, Hermione had managed to successfully go over her Ancient Runes material, as well as get halfway through her Charms practice, for which she had excused herself to outside of the Great Hall so she wouldn't bother any other studying student. Even Fred had kept quiet, or at least whispered whenever he spoke.

Eventually the bell rang, and Hermione closed her books and tucked them back into her schoolbag. Enjoying one sniff of fresh air, she removed herself from the Courtyard where she had been studying, and found her way back into the corridor.

"Oi, Hermione!" Great. She knew exactly who that was.

Turning her head around – one of the disadvantages of their charm was that she could never pinpoint where exactly in a room he was positioned, because he always sounded near – and stopped when she finally laid eyes on her favourite, yet not so favourite redhead standing at almost the opposite side of the corridor.

As per usual, he was rarely ever seen walking alone, and this time was no exception, as his dear brother carried a mischievous smirk on his face, keeping almost a dead glare with her.

"I was wondering if you had an extra heart," now, there was no point in Fred for screaming, as she would have heard him just fine without it, but clearly this was not just meant for her. No, this bloody git was planning something, and he wanted the entire school to know about it.

Meanwhile, George was heard chuckling alongside him as Fred continued. "Mine was just stolen," He yelled again, lifting his hand up to his lips and waving it her way as if blowing a kiss.

To her dismay, he did actually blow her something. And considering that he wasn't planning on sticking around to see her reaction – the two of them were laughingly rounding the corner – she dreaded whatever it was that was coming her way.

Now, the object at hand was rather innocent in itself. After all, it was just a paper bird, twirling as it weaved its way through the mass of students – it was lunch time, and everyone was getting out of their classrooms – but she knew better than to believe it would only be a paper bird.

Deciding to ignore it, she ignored the staring eyes as she pushed her way through the students, but the second she stepped away from the paper bird it not only followed her, but it turned ravenous. The chirping that had sounded so lovely and innocent before, were now turning into a soft melody, almost sweetly, yet the words contradicted it completely.

"Roses are red," it began, and she could have sworn it was Fred's voice. But how would he have spoken this if she would be able to hear him? Even though she had become rather great at blocking his voice out, pretend it was background noise, there was no way she wouldn't have caught this. Because this was out of context of his usual conversations.

At this a violin melody came into play, as the voice dreamily spoke on. "Violets are fine," unless, of course, Fred hadn't been the one to speak. Lucky for the prankster, he had a dear twin brother, who sounded almost exactly the same as him, and who loved to prank just as much.

More heads were turning her way, and Hermione seriously debated all her life decisions up to this point.

"You be the six," it went on, and this time she could practically hear the smirking in the voice, even though the violin tried to soothe it out. "And I'll be the nine."

At this she was convinced she had become scarlet red, and the whistling some people gave her didn't really help either. "You might want to open that one," A Hufflepuff said to her with a bit of sympathy, yet couldn't help but chuckle.

She knew that the Hufflepuff girl was right, but she honestly feared that opening it would be even worse than all the carnal things it was saying now.

Hermione had almost safely made it to the Great Hall by taking a bypass, where the paper bird had kept relatively quiet. Clearly it was urged on by the amount of people that were nearby.

Unfortunately, the only way to get to the Great Hall was through the Entrance Hall, and that place was packed. Yet, she had to go through it, but regretted it immediately as the paper bird began to loudly chirp again as soon as she walked through the double doors of the Great Hall.

"You remind me of my little toe," it began, and now even more heads turned her way. "Because I'm going to bang you on every piece of furniture in the comm-," loud booming laughter from the twins was rising above the laughter from other students, and so Hermione cut it off before the paper bird could finish its sentence.

"Oh, all right, all right!" She gave in, feeling completely flustered as she grasped the paper bird out of mid-air and fumbling it open. Well, at least it stopped it from finishing its sentence, but what she read inside didn't make her feel that much better either.

Meet me in the dungeons tonight,

Xx

Hermione wondered if she could politely pass up on that or not.

-x-

The answer to her previous question was: no, she couldn't pass up on his 'offer'. As he so politely explained to her, she could of course always say 'no', but he would then make sure that perhaps one or twenty other paper birds would be following her around that day until she was perhaps convinced otherwise.

So was it blackmail that had driven her down to the dungeons after curfew? Oh, absolutely yes. Had she expected anything else from Fred Weasley? Oh no, absolutely not.

Although, as the minutes were ticking by and were now turning into a quarter of an hour of waiting, she did begin to wonder if perhaps this was one of his other pranks. Perhaps a bit more of a cruel prank where he would stand her up and get her in detention.

Prefect or not, she wasn't supposed to be out right now. She wasn't on duty tonight, and thus she had to stick to the rules just like any other student usually would.

Hearing footsteps coming her way, she quickly glanced around in the dark to see if there was a way for her to escape to, but the empty corridor seemed endless, with no quick ways to escape it. Well, there her flawless reputation went. She would for sure be busted right now.

Without a warning, a hand covered her mouth from behind, and it was probably a good thing too, because she let out a loud scream in surprise. A muffled laugh penetrated her ears as a breath tickled down her neck. "Fancy seeing you here, Granger," a voice teased softly, then slowly released his hand.

"Fred Weasley!" Hermione scolded in a whisper as she wheeled around. There he was, standing cockily with his hands in his pockets, looking rather pleased with himself. "Don't you scare me like that," she hissed, but eased up a little as his smirk turned into a warmer smile.

Glancing around quickly, she feared that her yell had perhaps alarmed some people, but Fred was quick to comfort her. "Not to worry, I shrugged Filch off at the trophy room. I s'pose he'll be quite busy for a while cleaning up the fallen trophies in which I may or may not have put some exploding fireworks." Fred grinned.

Hermione refrained from scolding him, wanting to know first why they were even here. She didn't like being out in the open like this after curfew. "Why did you ask me to come here?"

At this Fred lighted up as he came closer. "Ah, now that Hermione, is a marvellous question," he started, then passed her by as he went for something behind her.

Turning around, she watched him tickle a poor pear in a painting, but to her surprise the pear squirmed and laughed until it transformed into a doorknob.

At this Fred shot a wicked grin over his shoulder as he entered a room, looking at her awe-struck face. She had never known about this location in the castle. "Are you coming or what?"

Well, he needn't have asked twice, for she was desperate to get out of the dark corridor, and currently the bright room seemed more than welcoming.

"Where are we?" Hermione asked as Fred closed the door behind her, but her question was answered soon enough as they walked a bit further, displaying a grand room that contained many countertops and almost an exact replica of the tables in the Great Hall above them. "The Kitchens," Fred pointed out to her.

"Miss Granger, Mr Weasley, what a pleasure!" A voice squeaked, and in sight came Dobby the house-elf, his ears pointing high up to the ceiling. But what surprised her the most were all the socks and scarfs that he was carrying around his body and on his ears.

"Dobby?" Hermione asked in surprise, then closed the gap a bit to properly look at his clothing. "Is that…" taking one sock off his ear she immediately recognized the bad stitches of her knitting from when she just started this year. "Is that the sock I've knitted?"

At this Dobby looked rather ashamed as he took a big step back – though not after having taken the sock back out of her hands – and fumbled with it as he lowered his gaze to the ground. "Excuse me, Miss Granger, I hope you'll understand. Dobby never meant to hurt your feelings, Miss," the little elf stumbled as his little feet swept over the floor below him.

"I don't understand, I've been hiding them all over the Gryffindor Tower," Hermione mumbled, completely forgetting that Fred was by her side, solely focused on Dobby now.

At this his little ears twerked up slightly, his gaze lifting up as he scratched behind his ear. "Yes, well, you see, Miss, the house-elves here at Hogwarts didn't like your gifts as much as I do, Miss," and then he lowered his gaze back to the ground. "They figured it a bit rude,"

Now Hermione was really confused. "How was it rude, Dobby? I just wanted to set them free."

Dobby lifted his head completely up now, smiling as he put the sock back on his ear. "Dobby knows you mean well, Miss, but the house-elves don't want to be free, you see."

Hermione shook her head, not understanding at all. Dobby shot a desperate glance at Fred, who in turn grabbed Hermione by the shoulders and guided her over to one of the tables so they could grab a seat. "Why don't you two have something to eat?" Dobby began, "Yes, yes I think that would be good," he finished, and before she could protest he had disappeared out of sight. Only to come back a few seconds later with two plates filled with leftovers from dinner, although a bit better presented and heated again.

"I don't want any," Hermione spoke determinedly, but Fred tutted at her. "Yes you do, that's the whole point of me bringing you to the kitchens," Fred countered, but Hermione shoved her plate away.

"I don't want laboured food," and at this Fred lightly chuckled. "You've been eating it the past five years, Hermione," he spoke matter of factly.

At this Dobby hopped on the bench beside them, a kind look on his face as he looked at Hermione. "It's not laboured work, Miss. You see, we all enjoy working here. The headmaster does treat us nice, oh yes he does. He even has me on a payroll, Miss." At this Hermione lightened up a little bit as she let Dobby explain further.

"So you mean to tell me I've been knitting for absolutely no reason?" Hermione whined a little as Dobby finished his story. At this the elf looked a little sheepish. "I didn't want to hurt your feelings, Miss. I know you mean well."

Hermione heaved a sigh, but then reached for the chicken, anyway. If the elves really liked their stay here, and she would be disrespectful by turning the food down – as Dobby had friendly told her – then she would just go ahead and grand their wishes.

"So, let me get this straight." Hermione said after swallowing down a piece of chicken, her gaze drifting over to Fred, who was finishing up his plate already. "Was all of today really necessary just to get me down here – to the kitchens?" Hermione asked, still feeling quite flustered.

"Of course, I had to grab your attention somehow," Fred smirked smugly. "Blimey Fred, you already catch my attention by simply existing. It's rather difficult to pretend you're not there, y'know,"

Fred grinned. "I feel flattered,"

Looking around the place, she saw some house-elves in the distance working to clean up some plates, and as soon as she finished hers, Dobby said his goodbye as he told them he'd be off to help them out, taking her plate along with him.

"Look," Fred started, a little bit more serious as he absent-mindedly tucked a stray hair behind her ear for her. "I brought you here because Harry told me about all the knitting you had done, and I figured you had to know what happened to it."

Hermione sighed, standing up and waiting for him to do the same. "I just can't believe I've been knitting for a whole year, and only now found out." At this Fred heartily laughed. "At least you got some delicious chicken to make up for it," He comforted, to which she let out a small chuckle as she shook her head.

Before they opened the door to go back to the common room, Hermione stopped in her tracks as she jabbed a finger into his chest. "Just-," Hermione began, cringing a little before continuing, "don't bang me in the common room tonight." Earning him a booming laughter from Fred, who shook his head as he calmed down.

"Don't you worry, Hermione," he said, a smirk popping on his lips. "My intentions are innocent," he soothed, then opened the door for her.

Before she could walk away, however, he grabbed her arm and tugged her closer, breathing into her ear. "For the most part, anyway." He chuckled, lightly hitting her on her arse as he slipped out of the kitchens before she could, laughing all the way as she chased after him.