Till There Was You

Chapter 4:

Disclaimer: I would like to clarify things for those of you who live in a dark basement with no connection to the outside world (how you're reading this I do not know….) I, Bella, do NOT own the characters in this story (Hermione, Fred, Ron, HARRY, George) or anything else for that matter (except possible parts of the plot…. but just to be safe I'll I don't) They all belong to an author named J.K. Rowling.  Just wanted to clear up any confusion…

A/N: Well I'm trying to get the chapters up as quickly as possible. I'm writing in almost all my free time (though I do try and spend SOME time with friends), but a lot of my time is taken up by reading about Hester and her scarlet letter, and American history. So I do what I can. Hopefully you'll like this chapter and I should be putting the next one up relatively soon.

            Hermione sat at a desk the twins had put in the attic for her, busily working on the figures for shipping costs. She looked up from her calculator and found Fred staring at her.

            "Everything okay?" she raised an eyebrow at him.

            "I still don't understand how you can just sit there and work for hours. No fiddling or breaks or other forms of procrastination. Just work."

            "I like being busy," she shrugged.

            "Well aren't there other things to keep you busy? Something a little more exciting than numbers?"

            "Not really…" Hermione thought about it.

            "What about the wedding?"

            "I put Ginny in charge. I just couldn't make myself do it."

            "Well we could so something," he suggested

            "Now?"

            "You don't want to sit at that desk all night do you?"

            "Well I really need to finish these…"

            "Hermione! You don't need to do anything. I'm your boss and I'm telling you to stop working!"

            "But…"

            "Not buts. We're going out. What's today?" he asked abruptly

            "Thursday."

            "Okay then, every Thursday we're going to go somewhere. You and me, and you're going to forget all your responsibilities and everything else in your life for a few hours."

            ""Fred…"

            "We're going!" he pulled her up from her chair and drug her out of the room.

            Hermione and Fred wandered around Hogsmeade. Fred had first headed straight for Zonko's, just as excited to be there as when he attended Hogwarts. Eventually Hermione was able to drag him away and they got a table at The Three Broomsticks.

            "I'm glad Mum made you come live at the Burrow," Fred commented.

            "Why's that?" she responded

            "Because now we can keep each other occupied."

            "Fred Weasley needs someone to keep him occupied?"

            "Hey! It's pretty easy to get lonely when you grow up in a house with nine people in it."

            "Yeah I guess it does get lonely with the house so empty all of the time."

            "Well we'll just have to make sure neither of us is ever lonely." 

            "I think we've been accomplishing that already. I've spent almost all of my time in the attic lately."

            "Hey. No talking about work."

            " I wasn…"

            "Ah!" he wagged his finger at her.

            "Fine," after a moments silence Hermione thought of another topic. "So when do you think Harry and Ginny will get married?"

            "I don't know," he shrugged. "Whenever he get the balls to decide he's actually going to spend the rest of his life married to Ginny and proposes," he shuddered a little at the thought of marrying someone like Ginny.

            "What makes you so sure she'd say yes?"

            "Oh please. Ginny's been writing Mrs. Virginia Potter on things since the first time she heard the story of the boy-who-lived. She's been hunting him like a deer since the day she saw him and Harry lost. Big time."

            "I guess you're right."  Hermione laughed.

            "Are you ready to head back? We can keep each other company there."

            "Sure."

            They paid for their drinks and apparated back to the burrow.

            "You're muggle-born right?" he asked her when they got back.

            "Yeah, you know that."

            "So are you good with muggle things?"

            "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

            "Well dad brought this thing home from work the other day. It's this black box, and you put these smaller black boxes in it." Hermione started blankly at him as he spoke. "It puts pictures on this other black box. They're kind of like wizard photos, but they talk too," he continued to explain.

            "Oh! I video player?" Hermione guessed.

            "That's it! So you know how to work one?"

            "Of course. Where is it?"

            "We let him hide in from mum in our bedroom."

            He led her up to the attic and into the area which him and George slept in. There stood a large television with a VCR and a stack of videotapes. Hermione sat by the tapes and quickly sorted through them. She laughed lightly.

            "Fred these are all romance films."

            "That's okay, pick one you like. I just want to see what it's like." Hermione agreed and put in Anna and the King, which was on top of the stack, grabbed the remote, and settled next to Fred on the bed. Fred's eyes widened in amazement as the movie started to play. Throughout the movie he kept making little comments to Hermione like "Amazing," "Brilliant," and "That kid really looks like Malfoy." Hermione, who had seen the movie before, was entertained simply by watching Fred.

            Hermione and Fred drifted awake the next morning to find themselves entangled in each other. Neither one moved at first, secretly wishing they could stay in their comfortable arrangement, but quickly broke a apart when they heard a laugh from the other side of the room.

            "You two have a little too much fun last night?" George teased. Hermione laughed off the uncomfortable feeling that had come over her and reluctantly pulled her self out of Fred's bed.

A/N: Short short short I know….  I really want the next part to be it's own chapter though. As long as I keep writing the next chap the way I am we should be getting in to some real Hermione/Fred romance action. So I promise to have it up soon.

            By the way thanks again to my reviewers it means a lot! And for those of you who brought it up… I feel bad for Ron too! I love Ron! But I'll try and make things not toooooo bad for Ron in the end (I'm not really sure any ending could be GOOD for him.), but I'll have to wait and see where things go. (I have a little outline of the whole story, but I probably won't stick to it….)

 Love,

            Bella