Chapter 4

"Fred! Fred! FRED WEASLEY WILL YOU KINDLY GET DOWN HERE AT ONCE!" It was midday the next day, and Mrs Weasley was standing at the foot of the rickety stairs that spiral up the centre of the house, with her hands on her hips and shrieking at the top of her voice. This, unsurprisingly, disturbed Hermione as she was trying to continue with her beloved book and she came down to see what the matter was. By the time she had reached her, Mrs Weasley's face was nearing the dangerous shade of deep plum, so Hermione stopped her and enquired unto the problem.

"Oh, it's nothing really, I just wanted him to clean out the fireplace in the kitchen as I'm off to see Percy now and I won't have time to do it until tomorrow, and the boys are to return by floo at any time, whenever the match finishes, and I don't want them caked up with dust like you were dear, and –"

"Mrs Weasley," Hermione interrupted her babble. "I'll clean it if you like. I don't have a lot else to do really and I like a challenge."

"Oh no my dear, you're a guest, I wouldn't dream of assigning you with such a degrading task! And you've been working so hard all this year and Fred has done nothing but sit and play around with silly worthless joke things and –"

"Please Mrs Weasley," Hermione persisted. "I really could do with something to do."

So, after Hermione had eventually persuaded her, Mrs Weasley allowed her to sort the fireplace and then she left to visit Percy.

It was hard work, but at least it took her mind off feeling bored, with nothing to do. After about an hour, she heard footsteps behind her.

"Blimey, I thought Mum only made us her slaves."

"She hasn't made me anything – I wanted to do it."

"I will never understand you Hermione," sighed Fred, strolling out the back door.

"Well maybe that's because your brain is about an eighth of the size of the average human being's!" She called after him.

Hermione was unsure how she felt towards Fred; whether it was irritation, amusement, exasperation or curiosity, she just didn't know. But something about him intrigued her. His manner, his character was so different from hers; he was relaxed, care-free and spontaneous and she was sensible, grounded and disciplined.

That conversation may not have lasted for any longer than 30 seconds, yet Hermione thought about it for the remaining 2 hours that it took her to finish cleaning the fireplace.

By the time she had finished and had had something to eat, it was early evening, and before taking a shower, Hermione thought she would go out into the garden and sit for a minute as the cool breeze looked very appealing after being cooped up in a dark fire place and scrubbing it for 3 hours solid.

She went and sat on the bench outside the door, and spent a while inhaling the rich summer aromas and watching the butterflies performing in amongst the flowers and the horizon mounting into a deepening pink sunset. Hermione closed her eyes and enjoyed the tranquility.

The creak of the bench startled her, and she opened her eyes to the sight of Mrs Weasley sitting next to her. She felt disappointment surge through her, but didn't know why.

"Hello dear, thank you so much for doing the fireplace, it looks clean enough to eat off!"

Mrs Weasley kissed her on the cheek and then left to go to bed.

Hermione got up after a while and went to kneel down in front of a large assortment of roses, there must have been about nine of them, all fully grown. One brilliant red one near the back caught her eye; it was the prettiest flower she had ever seen. The rest were all peachy/orange colour but this one she liked the best. The red appealed to her, it was her favourite colour. She associated it with things close to her, secret desires that she never told anyone about; passion, danger, thrill, excitement, adventure but most importantly: love.

Suddenly someone appeared from the back of the garden, which interrupted her thoughts. She was pleased this time; it was Fred, and he was carrying a hose pipe.

"Your clothes are filthy!" He laughed.

"Honestly Fred, this shirt isn't that low-cut …" Hermione muttered rolling her eyes and getting up from her spot.

Fred laughed again, "No, I meant they're covered in crap!"

"Oi, remember the language rule! Oh, but I suppose you can swear because you're 'the head of the house'," Hermione laughed back, using air-quotes.

"Yes actually. Here, let's see what we can do …" Fred smirked.

Hermione let out a shriek as Fred turned the hose pipe on full blast and aimed it at her face.

"Ppftredd!" Hermione spluttered. "Oooh you're going to regret doing that …" She leapt and seized the nearest watering can, ran into the kitchen and filled it to the brim with icy water. By the time she had come back out, Fred was at the end of the garden, hooting with laughter.

Hermione crept around the inside of the garden wall, intending to come at Fred from behind, and as Fred was too busy trying to stifle his laughter and hide behind a bush, he wasn't expecting the great gush of freezing cold water that Hermione dumped on his head and down the back of his neck. He immediately jumped up and turned the hose on her again as she ran away.

"Ppfttkfmioneeee! I swear!" Yelled Fred, half laughing, half growling.

"Yes you do Fred, that's what annoys me!" Hermione sang heartily from the middle of the lawn. She was standing unarmed, as the watering can was now empty, with a truly mischievous grin on her face and Fred saw this as the perfect opportunity …

"Ooh, nowhere to hide now!" Fred muttered devilishly.

And then …

"AAARRRGGHHH! FREEDDD!" Hermione screamed – it was hard to tell whether she was angry, delighted, appalled, excited, disgraced or thrilled, as all of these words seemed to equally describe how she sounded.

Fred had leapt on top of her, shoved the hose in her face and held her down to make sure that she couldn't escape, and in her struggle she was screaming and laughing, while Fred was growling and laughing, as they both rolled around all over the grass soaking wet and freezing cold.

"What the DEVIL are you two doing!" Mrs Weasley had opened her bedroom window and was looking upon the pair with immense shock and disgust on her face. "Get up this INSTANT and get yourselves dried off and into bed before I have to come down and DRAG you! Honestly, I would expect this kind of behaviour from Fred, but YOU Hermione?" And with that she slammed the window shut so hard that the glass shattered, and Fred and Hermione could faintly hear her mutter the repairing spell before there was silence once more, and they both scurried off upstairs to bed in fright without another word.