As always, all thanks in the world to my wonderful alpha Ash: she's the inspiration for George
Thanks to Moonfairy and Rebecca for organizing this wonderful fest! Check the other amazing stories on AO3
I based this on this prompt found on tumblr: Neighbour au in which one gets drunk on mulled wine and ends up knocking at the other's door, drunkenly trying to seduce the other and- instead- passing out in their living room.
My Christmas Wish
Fred Weasley always had a crush on his neighbour — he couldn't help himself: she was freaking adorable! He loved to see how excited she got over all the decorations that their neighbours were putting up or how her flat always smelled of Christmas cookies every time he passed by in front of her door. Fred had it bad for the pretty brunette, and his twin wasn't one to hold back when the subject was Fred's not-so-subtle crush.
"C'mon, Freddie, it's time for you to get out of your funk and ask her out! Do something!" George said one day, sitting on the couch, looking at Fred pace in the room. "Or are you going to wait until she moves out and meets someone else before you actually do something?"
"I've tried before, alright, Georgie? But every time I go up to her, she smiles at me, and my mind goes blank, and I just stand there staring at her like a total creep." Fred was getting frustrated: he had never had a problem with girls before, but now, he couldn't even look at Hermione Granger without feeling like he had lost the ability to speak.
Hermione was always nice to Fred, inviting him to the dinner parties that she threw, and she tried to hold the lift for him when she saw that he was walking into the building. Fred wasn't only interested in her looks, but he was also captivated by how nice she seemed to be; she was like one of those rare people who were nice to others just because they were compassionate.
"Just go talk to the girl like a normal person would, and then, when you finally start dating, you can thank me by naming your first child after me," Georrge said, standing up and walking towards his twin. George put his hands on Fred's neck, who yelped in surprise — George's hands were always so cold.
"What are you doing, you freak? You know I hate it when you put your freezing hands on me!" Fred said, batting George's hands away, while the latter only laughed at him. "What's your problem?"
"My problem is you trying to evade what I just told you," George said with a smug smile on his face. "C'mon, Fred, don't be like that! How long have you fancied her? Since she moved next door, right?"
"Maybe, I don't know..." Fred muttered, even if he knew exactly when he had developed a crush on Miss Granger: it was the day she had moved into the flat next door, and Fred had decided to help her by carrying some of the boxes for her — since the lift had been out of service — and she had thanked him by kissing him on his cheek and he had been a goner.
"Fred, I love you; you're my twin, and I want you to be happy," George said, putting his hand on Fred's shoulder. "But if you don't do anything, I'll need to intervene and you aren't going to like what I'm going to do."
"What would you do? Make a billboard in front of our building saying 'Fred Weasley fancies the pants off Hermione Granger'?" Fred asked, disbelief evident on his face, but looking at George's expression, he wasn't going to put it past him. "You wouldn't do it, right? Right?"
"I'm not saying that I would, but I'm also not saying that I wouldn't." George shrugged, with a twinkle in his eyes that Fred knew very well because he sometimes had the same twinkle in his eyes. "Just… go talk to the girl like a normal human being, I know you can do it."
"I'll try later, all right? How about that?" Fred said, tired of George's nagging, even if he was right — except the part with the name of his and Hermione's first child: he needed to ask her out first before they began to think about kids.
"You should ask her to Mum's Christmas party. I bet she would love to meet her future daughter-in-law," George said, smiling, but his smile disappeared when he saw Fred's murderous glare. "All right, I'll stop — for now. See you later, lover boy!"
George left Fred's flat, leaving Fred to think about what he had said. This should be easy: he could ask her out — not to his mother's party because he didn't want to scare her before they could get to know each other better. He decided to ask her out for a coffee. He could ask her; it wasn't such a big deal! That's what he was going to do… Tomorrow, because today, he needed to rehearse what he was going to say to her.
Fred didn't ask Hermione the next day — he chickened out in the last minute — but he struck up a conversation with her, so he decided to congratulate himself anyway. They went to a coffee shop next to their building, but Fred didn't count that as a date.
"I love this time of year, don't you?" Hermione said excitedly, looking around the coffee shop, but Fred only had eyes for her. "The smell of cinnamon in the air, the snow on the streets, and all the fairy lights!"
"Yeah, I guess you're right… I sometimes miss my old neighbourhood, you know? The one I grew up in," Fred said as they waited in the queue, and he tried not to be a creep and smell her hair, even if she smelt divine.
"Yeah, why's that?" Hermione asked, smiling at him, and Fred almost lost his breath. "What makes your neighbourhood so great that you miss it so much?"
Fred sighed, thinking about all the fun times he had had while growing up with his siblings, having the most epic snowball battles, how his mother always had hot chocolate for when they came back home, and mulled wine after they had grown up but still had snowball fights.
"It looked like a little community, you know? My siblings and I always played in the streets, and at Christmas time, we had the most awesome snowball fights the world has ever seen!" Fred said with a soft smile on his face, missing the way that Hermione was smiling at him. "We still do it when we go home to our mum's Christmas party, but it's not the same, you know? I don't know if this makes sense or not."
"I get what you are saying, it's the same with me and my best friend. Katie and I always come home and watch 'Nightmare before Christmas' as a tradition, but it isn't the same like when we were little and believed in Santa," Hermione said, scrunching her nose, and Fred thought she looked adorable. "But we still do this every Christmas, because it's tradition."
"And who doesn't like a great tradition, right?" Fred said and instantly wanted to knock himself in the head. He was finally having a decent conversation with Hermione, and this was the best he could come up with? Before he could say something else, they were in the front of the line to order their coffees.
"What can I get you two today?" a girl with shocking-pink hair behind the counter asked them, and after placing their orders, they went to wait near the counter.
"What's the thing you miss most by living in a flat instead of a house?" Hermione asked while they were waiting. Fred didn't have to think about his answer.
"Having all my siblings living in one place at once, and waking our parents very excitedly on Christmas Day." Fred smiled, remembering the past Christmases.
"How many siblings do you have?" Hermione asked, grabbing their drinks and offering Fred his, who quickly took it with a muffled 'thanks'.
"We are six brothers and one sister." Fred laughed at Hermione's expression. "Yeah, many people think that way when they meet us, it was chaotic growing up, but I wouldn't have changed that for anything in the world."
"I can relate to that," Hermione said with a sigh, that resulted in a raised eyebrow from Fred. "I grew up as an only child, but my best friend lived next door, so it's almost like having a sibling."
"You're lucky that she could go home because sometimes I wished that I could send George to the other side of the world, but he was always in the room buggin' me," Fred said, laughing a little at his twin's antics while they grew up. "I guess that's what you get when you have a twin."
"Your twin often visits you, right?" Hermione asks Fred as they returned to their flats. Seeing his confused expression, she continued, "I see him sometimes in the lift, and since he acts like he doesn't know me, he never says anything, not even when I call him Fred."
"Yeah, he's funny like that," Fred said while he was murdering his twin in his thoughts. George was such a wanker sometimes. "Thanks for coming with me to the coffee shop, Hermione, I don't like to walk there alone."
Hermione laughed at the face he made. "Don't worry, Fred, if you need help other times, just call me. You know where I live."
Winking in his direction and walking towards the lift, Hermione didn't realize that she had left a petrified Fred with a goofy smile on his face; if she had turned around, she might have laughed at his adorable face.
Later, Fred told George about the coffee shop encounter, and George almost knocked his twin upside the head, demanding to know how he could have missed such an opportunity. Fred tried to say that it hadn't been a date, but George was adamant in helping his twin get the girl.
They were at their parents' Christmas party, and George was determined to get Fred to spill his beans to his neighbour, and it was like they say 'there's no time like the present.'
George proceeded to get Fred to drink more mulled wine than what he was used to, because he knew that a drunken Fred was the most honest Fred that he would get. Fred didn't realize any of it. He just drank the wine happily, thinking how he wished Hermione was there with him.
"This is the best party that Mum's ever thrown, don't you think, Forge? It's the best we've ever had, and the mulled wine was so goog, and I think I should get one more, what do you think?" George said almost a mile a minute, not breathing between the sentences, while Fred just stared at him. "What's your problem, mate? Do you want another mulled wine? I think I can share mine with you."
"Don't tell anyone this, Gred... but"— he looked around suspiciously and then whispered—"I'm Batman, shhh!" Fred placed his finger on George's lips, even if he was the one who had said it.
"What? No way! This is so cool! This needs a mulled wine to celebrate!" George said, going to the impromptu bar that the Weasleys had put together for the occasion. "Hey, bartender, you want to know a secret?"
"Sure, buddy, why not?" the bartender said, trying not to laugh at the way that George was swaying from one side to another, trying to focus. "Do you want another mulled wine?"
"Yes, we need to celebrate, you know why?" Seeing the bartender only stared at him, George continued with a 'low' voice, "You know Batman? He's my twin! My twin is Batman!"
The bartender just shook his head at the revelation, but George was on a roll and couldn't hold in what he had just learned.
"I'm so glad he decided to confide in me, and I promised him that I wouldn't tell anyone his secret, and you can't tell anyone his secret, all right? Can I trust you?" George asked, grabbing the bartender's arms. "You won't tell anyone, right?"
"Of course, buddy, don't worry," the bartender said, rolling his eyes and giving George two mulled wines. "There you go, one for you and one for Batman."
George thanked him and went back to Fred, who was repeatedly muttering to himself 'I'm Batman' and gave him his mulled wine, toasting him with his cup. The twins stayed root to the spot, drinking for some time until their older brother Charlie came to take them home. Fred was the first one to be dropped off, and while he was in the lift, he decided that it was a great time to declare his feelings to Hermione.
He didn't realize that it was late and Hermione might have been asleep, but he wasn't chickening out; he was going to tell her how he felt. So, he started to pound on her door, hoping that he wasn't waking up the entire building, only the girl of his dreams. It wasn't a surprise when she opened the door, but he was a little frightened that she was holding a knife and was directing it at his chest.
"Fred? Oh my God, what's wrong?" Hermione asked, looking down the hall, thinking that some serial killer must be after Fred. Why else was he pounding on her door? "What's happening?"
"I decided I couldn't wait another minute before I told you something," Ferd said, smiling in her direction. "Hey! You already have a knife! You can cut the tension between us!"
Hermione snorted, not believing what was coming out of his mouth. "Fred, it's almost two in the morning, what do you want? And couldn't it wait until morning? You almost scared me to death."
"I had to come here and tell you that I like your face," Fred said, staring straight into Hermione's eyes, which were brown like the cinnamon sticks that his mum used for the mulled wine.
"What? You like my face?" Hermione said, trying to understand what the hell Fred was trying to say.
"Yeah, I like your face and your eyes and your hair, and all of you, actually," Fred said, swaying on the spot. Was the world spinning or was it just him? "I came to say that I want to rock your world, Hermione Granger! I want to fight your lips with my lips, and I want to sweep you off your feet... Do you have a broom here? I can show you right now!"
Hermione was impressed by everything Fred had awkwardly said to her, and she would have been even more impressed if he hadn't decided to choose that moment to fall face-first on the ground and faint. She laughed a little at the redhead and dragged him to her living room, where she put him on the couch and covered him with a blanket. She laughed at the pout on his face, and, putting the knife she had grabbed back in the kitchen, she went to her room, thinking about the things Fred had told her.
Fred's head was killing him; the last time he had drunk so much at a Weasley Christmas party was when he and George had become of age. He groaned, seeing the sunlight hit his eyes, and cursing himself for not closing his curtains the night before, he tried to roll over to the other side on the bed — only to fall off and scream like a little girl.
"Good morning, sleepy-head," came a voice from above, and it took everything in Fred's power to not scream again. "How about a cup of coffee?"
"Yes, please. That would be amazing," Fred said, standing up and realizing that he had slept on someone's couch. A hand with a steaming cup of coffee entered his line of vision. "Thank you."
"How's your head? Or better yet, how's your hangover?" Hermione asked, sitting on the couch opposite to the one Fred was sitting on. "How much did you drink last night? I'm curious."
"I think I drank everything and some more," Fred muttered, taking a sip of his coffee. "Hermione, if you don't mind me asking, why am I on your couch?"
Hermione blushed, and Fred thought she looked adorable. "You pounded on my door in the middle of the night, scared the shit out of me and then..." she trailed off and bit her lip, not meeting his eyes.
"I'm sorry I scared you, I lose control of my brain when I drink mulled wine… Did I say something terrible to you last night?" Fred asked, putting his cup on the coffee table and coming closer to where she was seated. "You can tell me."
"Well… you said you liked my face, asked me to cut the tension between us with the knife I was holding — don't worry, I didn't stab you! You would have felt it by now — and asked if I had a broom to sweep me off of my feet before you passed out on my doorstep." Hermione was smiling, while Fred just wanted Hell to open up and Satan to drag him down into its depths. "You were very sweet even while drunk."
"Ugh, I knew that I should have stayed at my parents' place," Fred said, groaning into his hands. He missed the way Hermione's face fell but continued speaking, "I sounded like a total creeper, right? If you just open your door, I'll be out of here before you know it, and you don't have to speak to me ever again."
"Oh," Hermione said softly, almost too softly, but Fred still heard her. "You didn't mean anything that you had said, then?"
"Oh no, I meant every word that I said, but I know you aren't interested, so if I make a quick exit, maybe I can save some of my pride," Fred mumbled, standing up and grimacing, feeling his head throb.
"I didn't say I wasn't interested, you just took me by surprise," Hermione said, standing up and coming towards Fred. "When I thought about answering, you had passed out, and I couldn't say anything, right?"
Fred almost couldn't believe what he was hearing, but if this was a dream, he didn't want to wake up. It was his Christmas wish finally coming true.
"And what were you going to say?" Fred asked, holding his breath, stepping towards her and looking straight into her eyes.
"I was going to say that I'm very interested in discovering how you would sweep me off my feet," Hermione said, blushing a little. "And you said something about wanting to battle my lips with your lips and—"
The next thing she knew, Fred had slammed his lips to hers and nearly knocked all wind from her lungs. Hermione had hardly a moment to react before Fred pressed his tongue to the seam of her lips and, at her grant of access, delved inside her mouth.
It was a very sloppy kiss with the strong scent of roasted coffee being exchanged in the intermingling of their billowing breaths. Hermione's arms reached up and tangled around his neck. In an instant, she had pulled away and arched up into his broad chest, moaning in the contact of body heat against her own, before she drew back into his lips.
Hermione could nearly feel the slight taste of coffee as it rolled off her tongue and seeped down her throat with every push of his tongue against hers. It was a sloppy kiss, but it was perfect for their first kiss.
"Wow," Hermione said after they had to separate for air. "You weren't kidding when you said you wanted to battle with my lips."
Fred couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled through him: he was overjoyed at the turn of events! "You're adorable, Hermione, and I can't wait to get to know you even more."
"Hmm, I think I'm anxious too," Hermione said, hugging Fred to her and kissing him again. It was still early, and they were going to enjoy their time knowing each other better — while they shared kisses in between.