A/N: Hello everyone! Welcome back to another fic :) This one was a little inspiration done on a day off after an amazing 5 mile hike. Exercise really seems to get the creative juices flowing!

Sticking to the sub-theme of the last round of a landscape theme, this one is set in Autumn, and is taken from memories of my parent's front yard. Raking leaves and keeping them whole vs shredding them to either burn or put out for the Department of Public Works to cart away was always a debate in my neighborhood. My mom liked to use the leaves as mulch in her flowerbeds and around the trees, so we always kept them whole whenever possible. The leaf piles were great. The sticks caught in the leaf piles, however...

This one is for Round 5 of The Houses Competition, where I'm in Slytherin House and writing for Transfiguration. This competition, we have to write a drabble (500-1000 words) as well as a standard (1000-3000 words). This fic is the Standard of the two. I've chosen the prompts [Action] Raking leaves and [Colour] Orange.

Thank you kindly to Aya, Ash Juillet, Dhrish, and Hope for betaing this.

Word Count: 1799

Disclaimers/Warnings:

Summary: Hermione and Fred take care of the fallen leaves in their front garden. Fremione one-shot

"Leaf Pile"

When Hermione had woken up that morning, there was a slight chill in the air that the rising sun quickly chased away before she even had morning tea. The air was still crisp as she stepped out of the cottage that she shared with Fred in the country several kilometers away from the Burrow. The brightly colored leaves crushed loudly underfoot as she wandered into the front garden, vibrant orange pumpkins lining the cobblestone path. They had several large oak trees in their front garden as well as an enormous maple tree imported from the States left from the previous owners that took up one entire corner of the yard. Between the three large deciduous trees in front of their home, the garden was awash in vibrant autumnal colors. A carpet of reds, yellows, a few dotted greens, and multiple shades of orange littered the lawn in an explosion of color, and Hermione couldn't help but feel nostalgic at the sight.

"Let's rake up the leaves today," she suggested as Fred joined her on their doorstep, his orange jumper-clad arms wrapping around her waist. She felt him perk up in excitement.

"Oh, I have just the idea for that!" he exclaimed before launching into an over-animated explanation of his idea, which involved merging machines and magic to gather up the leaves for them. Hermione frowned slightly at his words.

"I was hoping we could get the rakes from the shed and clean up the leaves the old-fashioned Muggle way," she replied. Fred hesitated for a moment before placing a kiss against her curls.

"It'll be better with my invention. Mum never let us use magic to rake the leaves. It'll take me an hour, maybe less to get it up and running! You should go relax with a book or a bath and I'll have the yardwork done in no time!" Before she could get a word in edgewise, he slipped past her to head to his shed on the side yard that was stylized after his father's tinkering shed back at the Burrow.

With a sigh, Hermione headed back into the cottage to grab her coat and boots before heading back outside to grab her rake from the cellar. Hesitating for a moment as she spotted the matching rake she had gotten for Fred, she pulled it from the cellar and leaned it up against the house in case he wanted to use it later. Hermione then headed over to one side of the garden to start raking.

With the first few sweeps of her rake, Hermione got caught up in her childhood memories. Raking the leaves several times each autumn had been an activity she and her parents had done up until she went to Hogwarts. They would rake up all the leaves in the yard, jump into the leaf pile for a while, and only then would they bag the leaves all up to put by the curb for collections. As a reward for their hard work, they would then disappear into the house, to make hot cocoa and watch one of the movies her dad had picked out. Raking leaves manually was a bonding activity, and Hermione was slightly disappointed that Fred didn't seem interested in sharing that with her.

Forty-five minutes and half of the yard raked clear of its leaves, Fred emerged from his tinkering shed with a metal box in his hands, his red hair, always slightly more orange than the rest of his family's, shining brightly under the morning sun. His orange jumper that she had gotten him as a gag gift the second Christmas after graduating Hogwarts had grease stains smeared down its front, and Hermione inwardly grimaced just thinking about how long it would take to get it clean. Taking a cursory glance at the contraption in her boyfriend's hands, Hermione likened its image to a droid from Star Wars, and she had to tamp down on the million questions she wanted to ask around its creation.

He began to chatter animatedly to her about it anyway, and a feeling of wistfulness welled up in her chest. There was a pang there too, as a what-if scenario filled her mind all those years ago.

At the Battle of Hogwarts, she had been separated from Harry and Ron at the most inopportune moment towards the beginning of the battle as the Death Eaters stormed the castle. She had found Fred and Percy and had joined up with them in order to keep the secret passageways secure. The battle against a group of Death Eaters had been swift and terrifying, flashes of spellfire filling the hallway, and had she been a second later in erecting her shield and knocking Fred out of the way, he might not have been here with her now. Her shield had barely held against the explosion caused by a sickly looking orange colored spell, and as Percy dragged them both to their feet, Fred had stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.

He had vowed a life debt to her at that moment, and, not realizing the severity of such a statement, Hermione had merely waved it off, deeming it unimportant in the scheme of things. Life debts were just things of fairy tales, after all, meant to be plot devices to tie two people together. Fred hadn't pushed it then and had allowed her to go off to find Harry and Ron after the corridor was secured. After the battle, however, he wouldn't let her forget it.

Their relationship only grew from that point on, and Fred had made sure to be a solid rock she could cling to when life grew too hectic. After the Battle, he chose never to date, always saying he just hadn't found the one, or even jokingly bringing up his life debt to her. Hermione had always brushed it off.

"You're family, Fred! There are no debts between family!" she had protested.

At one point, and she wasn't even sure when it had happened, Fred had become just as important to her as Harry and Ron were. She and Ron… they had tried and failed spectacularly at a relationship. They were too different, they wanted different things in life and from their partners, and eventually, they just chose to split in order to keep together the remnants of their friendship. Fred had been there to console her, and when she had readily fallen into his arms, she couldn't help but admit that there was a big reason why her relationship with Ron would never work.

There was one event, however, that fully cemented Fred's place in her heart. Shortly after her breakup with Ron, Hermione chose to go find her parents in Australia. Fred had automatically volunteered himself to come with, citing the need to 'keep her in line' and 'make sure she didn't cause any trouble.' His easy grin never failed to make her smile, and when she found out that what she had done to her parents was irreversible, she had sobbed in his arms until she passed out. It was because of him that she had made it home safely, and he had helped keep her grounded on the entire way back.

Their first pub trip she finally felt up for after getting back from Australia saw Fred asking her out on a date, and her easily saying yes.

And the rest was history.

A loud bang brought her out of her reverie to find Fred's invention backfiring and shooting shredded orange leaves everywhere on the lawn. It seemed the contraption was trying to shred the fallen leaves and suck them up at the same time. Hermione aimed a scowl at Fred as she leaned against her rake, watching as the machine undid her hour's worth of hard work in seconds. Motioning to the mess on the ground as the machine kept spinning around haphazardly, she didn't need to say a word as she raised an eyebrow at him.

Fred carded his hand through his red-orange hair, mussing it up, before turning to regard the newly destroyed garden. Hermione had to stifle a laugh upon seeing a splatter of dirt and leaves covering the back of his orange jumper; she just managed to compose herself when he turned back to her.

"Sorry, Love," he said sheepishly as he waved his wand to collect his device before it could do more damage. Instead of folding in on itself to make itself more compact for transporting like she assumed it was supposed to do, the device swelled up before bursting into an orange cloud of leaf confetti. Hermione coughed and waved the leaf fragments away from herself before sighing at her boyfriend.

"Looks like that one needs to go back to the drawing board," she replied before grabbing her rake again. She motioned to their second rake, which still leaned against the cottage. "Now you get to help me clean up this mess!"

He drew her in for a quick hug and kiss, and she melted into his embrace. He then grabbed the second rake and finally got to the manual labor part of the chore.

Another thirty minutes later saw the whole front garden clear of leaves besides the enormous pile they had raked everything into. Fred set down his rake into the grass and drew his wand, and Hermione could only assume he planned to banish the pile. She stilled his motions with a hand on his arm.

"You'll miss the best part!" Hermione exclaimed in a grin before throwing her rake down next to his. With her grin widening, Fred was given no warning before she pushed him into the large pile of leaves. With a squeal, Hermione jumped in after him, and he couldn't help but laugh as his arms wrapped around her.

"You're right. This is the best part!" he exclaimed as he rolled them around, the damp colorful leaves covering them completely. He drew her close, matching grins on their faces, before he kissed her, Hermione melting in his embrace.

And when the couple finally emerged from the leaf pile an indeterminable time later, they both had swollen lips and pieces of orange and red leaves in their hair. Murmuring small tokens of love to each other as they picked the leaves from each other's hair, Hermione gave Fred another short, sweet kiss.

"Your next contraption should just gather the leaves and not crush them up. Leaf piles are always better when they're whole," she whispered. Fred drew her closer with a wide grin, making a noise of agreement in the back of his throat.

"Yes they are," he said before pulling her down and letting them fall back into the leaf pile, Hermione's giggles filling the air.