A.N.: This chapter was betaed by the brilliant multilingualism. Thank you for helping me, my friend!
Chapter 7: Getting to know you
"Well, that didn't go as planned," Fred thought while he and George were guided to the hospital wing by a very enthusiastic Hermione Granger. The girl was a saint and it was probably totally unthinkable to her, that Fred and George were just faking their bleeding noses and could have just taken the antidote that was safely stored in their pockets, to cure themselves. But now that she had seen them and made up this pretty little mind of hers to prevent them from bleeding out in the corridors or whatever she was thinking, they couldn't very well tell her that they had just looked for a way to get out of Umbridge's class. Because that was something their favourite, over-achieving Prefect surely wouldn't understand. And Fred didn't want to ruin his chances to get the witch before he had even started to woo her.
"Maybe we could convince her to stay at our side for a bit if we look pity-worthy enough," George whispered through the twin link and Fred had a hard time not to start smirking.
"Well, it would be a chance to spend some time with Hermione and to get to know her a bit better," Fred answered back, without Hermione noticing a thing. "If we can't use the time to invent products for our shop, we can at least enjoy ourselves."
As if to underline this thought, Hermione's arm on his back shifted slightly which made the skin prickle in anticipation. Yeah, enjoying himself definitely wasn't a bad idea at all.
"Here we are," Hermione announced encouragingly as she guided them through the doors of the infirmary. Madame Pomphrey puttered somewhere in the back but turned around as soon as Hermione called for her. But as her eyes landed on them, her expression turned wary and she looked them over with small eyes.
"What did you do to yourselves this time, gentlemen?" she muttered and Hermione hastily stepped back to get out of the Matron's way. It was right in time, as the medi-witch was in front of them a moment later and guided them to two beds nearby. Hermione followed them with her eyes and looked at them with a worried expression. Fred tried to send her an encouraging smile, but right at that moment Madam Pomfrey vanished the tissue he held in front of his nose and a stream of blood erupted from his nose. It mustn't have been a pretty sight, because Hermione's skin started to look a bit peachy, even though she bravely returned his smile.
"Another one of your experiments?" the medi-witch muttered and held the glowing tip of her wand under his nose.
Fred shrugged with a grin. "We just can't help our curiosity," he explained good-naturedly, which made the older woman sigh in resignation.
"The two of you will be the death of me," she murmured and cast a number of healing spells to fix his nose. It wasn't long after that she was finished with them.
"Alright, you two. Try not to come back here too soon. It's enough to have you here once a week," she scolded them with a stern look but Fred just grinned at her.
"You can admit that you like it when we visit you now and then," he said and winked at her but the matron just sent him a small smile and shook her head.
"Off you go, or I'll change my mind and keep you for the rest of the day."
"See? I told you she likes us," Fred said loudly to his brother and George chuckled amusedly. That was until his eyes fell on Hermione, who waited for them with a nervous expression on her face.
"Are you alright?" she asked while kneading her hands. "You looked like you've been in a fight or something." Her eyes trailed back and forth between them with a worried expression. "Did you fight?"
George cast her a good-natured smile. "Of course not. Fred and I never fight with each other, don't worry."
Hermione blinked in surprise. "Never? Not even as kids?" They smiled in unison before they turned towards the door that would lead them to their freedom. When their girl just looked at them with a stunned expression, they each held out a hand for her, in the hope that she might take it. But that only seemed to confuse her further and she turned around with furrowed brows. "Do you want me to accompany you back to your lesson?"
Fred shrugged and started walking towards the door. "I'm still feeling a bit shaky," he lied shamelessly and looked at her with faked embarrassment. "George and I will probably just go back to a quiet place and rest a bit. But… you could join us to make sure we're alright." Fred smiled at her with a hopeful expression. He knew that he was probably overdoing it, as Hermione Granger was nothing if not dutiful, but it was worth a try. And by the look of her furrowed brows, she was really considering his suggestion.
"Do you really think you'll need me to keep an eye on you?" she asked while they strolled down the corridor together and looked at them with pink cheeks. Why was she blushing? It wasn't like they hadn't been alone together before.
George shrugged at her other side. "Not sure. We might be totally fine in a while, but it's quite a long way back into the common room. But I can totally understand if you'd rather go to your Transfiguration lesson." It was totally unfair of them to trick her like that, but Hermione Granger was pretty hard to meet alone and so they were taking every chance they could get. They just had to hope that she wouldn't discover that they were in fact totally fine because they had faked their nosebleed in the first place.
Hermione studied them with a hesitant expression while gnawing on her bottom lip, but finally, her shoulders sagged with a sigh. "Alright, I'll stay with you. But just until you feel better, alright?" The twins beamed at her.
"Alright," they said in unison and nodded.
"We could even do homework together," George suggested casually. "Or we just tell you a bit about our childhood, if you like, because you seemed rather surprised that Fred and I never argue with each other."
She blinked in surprise. "You'd really do homework? But I'm not going to help you with your essays."
Fred snorted. "Of course not. We might be a bit lazy sometimes, but we're not Ron, you know? We can do our own work."
Hermione looked at them with pink cheeks. "I know, I'm sorry. I really didn't want to imply anything."
" 's alright Hermione," the other redhead said and cast her a sunny smile. "It just seems that you really don't know us very well. And we should definitely change that. Can't have it, that you confuse us with our little brother."
"… because we are really in a category of our own," Fred continued and winked at her.
Hermione chuckled. "I never doubted that you know?"
ssssssssss
That much for her good intentions, they went right out of the window. Hermione had really wanted to keep her distance from the twins to not embarrass herself with her feelings towards them, but that was before they asked her to spend the afternoon with them. She had really considered going back to her lesson, but as she had already read the chapter on transfiguring mice anyway, she knew that she wasn't going to miss anything that she couldn't teach herself. And so she had finally relented and agreed to accompany Fred and George to the common room. They would be doing homework together after all and there wasn't really anything, she could say against that, right?
The common room was unsurprisingly empty as almost all of the students were still in their classes and so the twins chose one of the cosy corners with a sofa and two armchairs. After a hesitant look towards them, she chose an armchair for herself, while Fred and George settled together on the sofa.
"How much do you have to do?" George asked her and looked at her with an inclined head.
"Just potions today," she said and pulled out her book and her writing utensils out of her bag. "You?"
"Transfiguration and a bit of charms," George replied with a shrug. " 's not a big deal, we already know what to write. So we can skip the reading."
She furrowed her brows. "Well, but I'm sure you'll need to double-check some details."
Fred shrugged. "Maybe, but usually we are fine without."
With that, they set themselves to work. It didn't take long until she realized that doing homework with the Weasley twins was completely different than doing homework with Harry and Ron. Her friends were usually quite distracted and kept fidgeting and moaning, while they did their work. Fred and George, on the other hand, sat in complete silence and worked with an efficiency, which could only leave her staring at them in fascination. Their quills seemed to be moving nonstop and she didn't even have half of her essay finished until both of them stretched and put their parchment aside.
"You're already finished?" she asked them in disbelief and couldn't help that her eyes drifted towards the scroll on the floor. Could that even be a good essay, if they had barely taken their time to think about what they were writing? George seemed to sense her thoughts, as he watched her actions with a knowing smile on his face and said: "You look like you'd love to read our scribblings. Well, go on, don't be shy. We really don't mind."
Hermione looked back and forth between the two brothers. "Really? I don't want you to think that I'm nosy or… well… a Know-It-All." Her cheeks turned pink at her words, a thing they seemed to do regularly in their presence, which was honestly the most annoying thing.
"Why would we think that, Hermione?" Fred said with a happy smile. "You're curious and that's never a bad thing. We must know…" He winked at her, before handing over his scroll and leaning back on the sofa. She blinked at him for a moment, but as neither of them said anything else she put her own essay aside and started reading. Hermione was only three inches in before she realized how good it was. She had always been interested in human transfiguration and even though she had already read some books on the topic, none of them had been able to explain the basic principles for a transformation into another living being like that. And before Hermione realized it, she was totally swallowed by the text.
"Well? What do you think?" Fred interrupted her thoughts after a while and after she recognized how nervous he sounded she realized that she hadn't only read his essay twice but had continued gathering her own thoughts on the topic afterwards.
"It's brilliant!" she exclaimed and handed the parchment back with a beaming smile. "I've seriously never read anything like it. It's like…" she struggled for words, "Well, most specialised texts are rather dry to read and sometimes you have to read a passage twice or even more often until you can really grasp the meaning. But this…"
"Does it mean you like it?" the redhead asked her with a hopeful smile.
"Absolutely," Hermione said wholeheartedly. "You've done something I am never quite able to. You didn't just repeat what's in the textbook and put it into a new context… you put in something of your own, too. When I'm reading this I finally realize, why Snape's always complaining about my essays ruminating the book."
Fred snorted in amusement. "Don't worry about the old bat. By the way, how's your essay going?" Without waiting for an answer he wordlessly summoned her parchment from the floor and looked it over with his brows furrowed in concentration. Hermione wanted to protest because after reading his essay, she almost felt stupid for hers. And that had really never happened to her before. But finally, she sighed and leaned back in her armchair, to wait for his comments. It didn't take long before he looked at her, with a smile dancing behind his eyes.
"Ah yeah, the endless essays on the influence of clockwise versus anti-clockwise stirring techniques. It's one of Snape's favourite topics I fear." He snorted, before handing her the essay back. "But you're almost finished by the look of it. Just discuss its effect on the required simmering time and you're about done."
Hermione nodded and reopened her essay in front of her. She studied her text for a few seconds before she looked up at Fred with furrowed brows. "I don't get it," she said to the two of them and shook her head. "You're brilliant! How does nobody realize that?"
The twins looked at her with a stunned expression.
"Well, some teachers like McGonagall do see it, I guess, but they usually only moan about our wasted potential," George replied and shook his head with a grin.
Fred shrugged. "But we're not wasting anything. Our dreams are just not the same as everybody else's. I mean honestly! Could you see us as Prefects or even Head Boys? We'd die of utter boredom."
Hermione couldn't suppress a chuckle. "That's true I guess. But, what about your NEWTs? You're each only attempting three of them, aren't you?"
They nodded seriously. "Absolutely. Charms, Transfiguration and Defence NEWTs are all we need," George said and smiled but Hermione wasn't convinced.
"Not potions? You both seem fairly good at it and I almost got the impression you liked the subject. And wouldn't it be useful, if you want to design your own products?"
Fred smiled. He didn't seem insulted by her words at all. "You're right of course; I love potions, to be honest. That is, in fact, the reason I decided to not suffer through two more years of Snape. This guy manages to almost squish the interest in the topic in anyone and even though he's a talented brewer, he's a horrible teacher."
Hermione looked at him with wide eyes. Fred was right, in a way, but she still didn't like to talk bad about one of her teachers. And so she just shrugged without giving any answer at all.
Instead, George continued his brother's explanation. "Honestly Hermione, all he does is tell you the right side in the potions book and walk through the class and make snide comments. One could think he does that to prevent potions accidents, but there were enough of those in our class and I'm pretty sure it's not any different in yours. So what's the use of sitting through two more years of that? We much rather use the time teaching ourselves something useful."
She sighed. What they said did make sense, at least for them. And so she couldn't even fault them for their reasoning. "I honestly never looked at it like that," she admitted with a small smile. "But I guess you really thought that through. And the two of you would make horrible ministry employees anyway."
Fred and George were totally stunned. "You agree with us? Really? Just like that?"
"Why not?", she said with a shrug. "You really seem to have put a lot of thought in that. And I'm not your mum, so it's none of my business anyway."
They looked at her with shining eyes and happy smiles. "Well, apart from Harry, you're the first one just accepting our plan without making a big fuss. Even Ron thinks we're a bit barmy," George said with a grin.
"Well, we always knew our Hermione is special, didn't we Georgie?" Fred said to his brother and winked at her and just like that the colour was back in her cheeks. Merlin, when would she finally stop embarrassing herself in front of them? It's not like they were flirting with her after all. They were just trying to be nice, right?