Commitaphobia

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Harry Potter, and I own nothing.

Summary: Hermione breaks up with her current boyfriend – again. It actually seems to be a bad habit of hers. However, when Fred and she go on a "secret mission," hilarity and romance ensue.

Chapter 6: Whoopsy Daisy

June 16th – In my Room – 7:00 PM

I found out what's in that ridiculous yellow envelope that Ron so brutally accused me of engineering, and, of course, it was all Fred's fault. See, apparently, we were supposed to be in on the plan together.

The yellow envelope contained the pictures that Fred took at Festering Fern's. Fred put it in an enveloped and left it in one of my desk drawers for me to slip into Ron's room. It was sealed and labeled with Ron's name.

Then, Fred left instructions to me written in... get this... invisible ink. He put it on the top of my desk. That's right, the stupid git just assumed that I would know the piece of parchment laying on my desk had invisible ink instructions on it. NOT. So, of course, I Just stuck the parchment in one of my drawers and went on with my day.

Ron, the nosy wanker that he is, was going through my desk looking for red ink because apparently he was out, and he found the yellow envelope. It did have his name on it, as I pointed out to Fred. But Fred didn't care. He flipped out and said that Ron had no right to open it up before I had given it to him.

Whatever. Fred screwed this one up this time, at least. Not me.

Ron, though, as stupid as he is, does not think it's me or Fred, according to Fred. He said that he lied so convincingly, that Ron thinks it's someone from outside the family. Ha! He sure is suspicious. And at least this confirms one thing. It definitely was the BWWNE that was with Ron at Festering Fern's.

So. Unless he's with this chick, what's he got to hide?

June 17th – In my Room – 11:56 PM

I was so busy today, what with writing a final essay for the ministry internship. I made it down to the final three! That's right, I might actually become an intern. I haven't really wanted to write about it in here in case I didn't get it because then the memory would be painful. But now that I'm top three, I think it's safe to say that I could possibly make it into the internship.

Fred told me that I was anal retentive today. I don't think he meant it in a hurtful way. I mean, I did lock myself in my room to write this essay. I didn't even let Fred in to talk about the plan. I didn't even let Ginny in, and it's her room. I probably deserved the anal retentive comment. But that doesn't mean he had to say it out loud. He's such a git.

A very endearing git, though. He looked absolutely dashing today in a pair of hunter green robes that made his hair stand out nicely. Not really the normal shocking red. It was cute.

Not that I just wrote that about Fred Weasley. Why are thoughts about him taking over my hand and transferring into this diary constantly. Half the time I don't even mean to write some of the stuff that I do.

He told me to meet him downstairs tonight at 12:30 AM (or 0030 hours, in his exact words) so that he can give me the third (and he says hopefully final) plan for our mission.

June 18th – In the bathroom – 2:00 AM

Operation Ron Is Dead

Status: Finalization

Step 3

Meet me tomorrow, Thursday, June 18th, at approximately 1200 hours. I'll be in the broom cupboard.

I have come by some more privileged information. Ron called to get Seamus Finnegan to cover his afternoon shift at the shop. Ron, however, was working double shifts today, so he will be at the shop until about 1300 hours.

You and I will proceed to the shop without letting anyone see us there. If someone does, we'll play it off that I was just checking up on everything.

We will go behind the shop and mount brooms that I have already left there. I swiped Ron's broom, so you've got one too. Don't worry, it's a pretty good one. You'll be soaring next to me in no time.

We will go up high enough tomorrow to have cloud cover, and we will follow Ron from above. Hopefully this time we'll get some pictures of the girl's face.

Consider this you first airborne stake out, Spiff.

-Bogey

These were fairly short instructions considering all of the rules Fred gave me yesterday It took him like an hour to spell it out, and I don't even know what he talked about. You see, he has these really pretty green-grey-blue eyes, and I was trying to decide what color they were. I had settled on green for a while, but then I changed my mind. They're definitely blue.

I'm tired, though. And I'm flying tomorrow. I get a little queasy just thinking about it. Note to self: bring Pepto Bismol tomorrow!

Oh, please don't let me throw up in front of Fred. Pleeeease.

What could be less sexy than throw up?

The answer? Nothing.

June 20th – Downstairs – 1:00 AM

I hate myself.

June 20th – In the Garden – 4:00 PM

Well. Yesterday I found out what's less sexy than throw up.

What, you ask?

ME. I am. I suck. And if it weren't for my parents I would go and commit suicide by jumping out of a window. Not even kidding. Ok... maybe a little.

Is there a plan in this world I can't mess up?

Everything went smoothly yesterday morning at least. I got up, showered, put on some jeans, changed into some different jeans, changed into shorts, changed into another pair of shorts, wondered why I cared what I looked like, changed my outfit three more times, and finally settled on the second pair of jeans I tried on and a tank top. Why did I care? Who knows.

I ate breakfast (delicious, as usual), read The History of the Troll Wars, paced around my room in a worried tizzy, tried to re-read Hogwarts: A History, paced around my room, even more nervous... I hadn't thought that I'd be so nervous.

I finally left the house at 11:30, apparating to the shop. I had the instructions Fred had given me in my pocket, and before going to meet Fred, I glanced at them one more time.

I really didn't want to get on a broom... Ever since that incident the first time I tried to play quidditch...

Since I'm such a trooper, though, I sucked it up and went around back to meet Fred. He, however, was nowhere to be found. I checked my watch – it was 11:35 AM. So Fred had another 25 minutes until he was late.

Well, not only did those 25 minutes pass, but so did another 20. It was 12:20 before Fred appeared in front of me, holding two brooms. One I immediately recognized as Fred's as he has recently been able to snag a used Nimbus 2000 for a pretty good price. I'd never seen him take such pride in anything (except maybe his jokes). He polished it almost nightly. The other broom was slightly more rundown-looking, but it didn't look too awfully unstable.

"Hermione!" he said gleefully when he saw me.

"You," I said, looking at my watch pointedly, "are late."

"I," he said, rummaging around in his pockets for something, "had some other stuff to do. I didn't think it'd take so long."

Fred pulled a few fake wands out of his pockets, a large ring of keys, at least ten canary creams, and some type of chocolate that he offered me, and I accepted.

Ha! Psyche. Gotcha. Of course I didn't take the chocolate.

He then pulled out the pair of omnioculars we had used in the last stake out. Groaning, I mumbled, "I thought I had seen the last of those dumb things."

"These dumb things are going to solve the mystery for us," Fred said, grinning. "You just wait. Today's the day. I can feel it in my bones."

"Or maybe what you're feeling is the heat index of 110," I said, rolling my eyes and taking the broom he offered me.

It was pretty hot outside. The sun was doing its sunshiney thing, and the humidity was doing its humid thing, and it was pretty much awful.

"And, we're off!" Fred said, pushing off from the ground and soaring into the air quickly and nimbly, disappearing into a cloud.

This was before I had even gotten my leg all the way over the broom. "FRED!" I shouted uselessly. "Come BACK you loser!"

Oh I know. My insults are cutting edge.

A flash of red hair greeted me as Fred barreled back toward the ground, making even me dizzy. Right as I thought for sure he was going to crash into the concrete, he gently put his feet down and landed softly.

"Show off," I muttered, carefully pushing off with my feet.

"Come on, Hermione, it's not that bad," he said, doing a backflip in the air.

Once I had myself steadied in the air, we slowly started ascending toward the clouds. Once or twice, Fred got ahead of me, but he would always come back and urge me on. Or make fun of my lack of flying abilities. Whatever.

After Fred cast a concealing charm on us, we waited above the shop, looking for Ron to leave.

"So," Fred said as he stared intently below us, "if you, Snape, and Filch were the last people on Earth and you were responsible for repopulating the world, who would you pick for your mate?"

"What?"

"If you, Snape, and Filch – "

"I heard what you said, but I'm not answering it. That's disgusting!"

"You have to. You're the last people in the world," Fred said, laughing at my outrage.

"No way. The human species can just die out then," I said, joining in with his laughter.

"Mhmm..." he said absentmindedly, still watching the door of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes carefully.

"Why were you late today?" I asked, partly out of curiosity and partly out of nothing to say.

Fred turned his head slightly and looked me in the eye. "Are you going to get mad at me if I tell you?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Umm... no?" I didn't think so at least...

He squinted at me, as if evaluating whether or not I would, indeed, be mad. "Well, I was filling in for George."

"Why?"

"He wanted me to go on a date for him."

"What?"

"He made a brunch date with his current girlfriend, some chick working in the shop across from outs, but he had to go pick up orders at our suppliers. He asked if I'd go on the date for him. Save him from canceling it."

"That's awful!" I said, moving my broom slightly closer to his so that I could push his shoulder slightly. "That poor girl!"

"Please," Fred said, rolling his eyes. "If she couldn't even tell us apart then she can't be that great. It was no big deal. We went to breakfast, ate, talked, and I kissed her goodbye."

I felt a slight twang of jealousy at the last words. It's like I'm starting to think of him as mine. We've gotten along so well lately.

"Still," I said, "that's so wrong."

As he did a slow barrel roll, Fred shrugged. "It's wrong that she didn't even notice that I wasn't George. What kind of girlfriend is that?"

He did have a good point there. And it shut me up for a while.

After a few minutes of silence, Fred finally asked a weird question. One that I still don't know what to make of. "If you, me, and George were the last people on Earth, who would you pick to repopulate?"

I could feel my face turning red as the obvious answer screamed into my head. Of course I'd pick Fred.

But he wasn't done yet. "You don't have to say me just because I'm the one asking," he rushed on quickly. "I just wanted to know for informational purposes." The entire time, he kept his eyes on the ground, the tips of his ears slightly going red. He did a slow front flip in order to, I think, divert the attention from himself and the question at hand.

"Ummm..." I said. Witty, aren't I?

At that moment, two things happened.

One, Ron came out of the shop. Two, my broom gave a giant buck, almost like Harry's did during that one quidditch match our first year.

The first went (almost) unnoticed by Fred as my broom began to spiral insanely. Not only did I feel like I was about to throw up, I held on for dear life as the broom began to buck and sway like crazy.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" A high-pitched scream is all that would express my feelings at the moment. "What the HELL, Fred Weasley! Get me off of this damn broom!" Ok, maybe not all.

"I'm TRYING! Stay still!"

"Try harder dammit!" The broom began doing lazy loops in the air as I tried unsuccessfully to yank it back upright. It wouldn't do a thing I tried to tell it to do.

I have to hand it to Fred that he was trying his hardest to keep up with my broom and its strange maneuvers.

As the broom lurched forward and stopped suddenly, I felt myself get thrown off of it. My right hand was the only thing keeping me on, while my broom happily rose higher and higher into the sky. I looked down to see Fred almost directly below me.

"Drop onto my broom!" he shouted up at me, trying to position his broom in a convenient position.

"Are you insane?" I asked, which at the time seemed like a valid question.

He continued as if he hadn't heard me, "1... 2..."

I inhaled deeply.

"3!"

I closed my eyes and let go of my wildly tossing broom, which quickly rocketed into the sky, never to be seen again.

Fred's arms were around my waist as I had one leg slung over his hips in a most unladylike fashion and the other barely over the broom. My arms were around his neck as I tried to pull myself onto the broom in a more correct fashion.

"Well, hellooooo, Hermione," Fred said with his eyebrows raised. He nodded at my leg, which had still not been moved from his. He grinned wickedly and jokingly placed his hand on my knee. "Nothing like an enchanted broom to bring people together."

The look I gave him could have probably knocked him off his broom. I adjusted myself so that I was still facing him, but our knees were the only part of us really touching.

He tried to redeem himself by saying, "No, but, seriously, you okay?"

"Am I okay! NO, I'm not okay! Are you insane!" That was the second time in two minutes I'd asked him that, which he pointed out with glee.

"Bloody hell! What was wrong with that broom!"

Fred looked abashed as he mumbled something. When he realized I hadn't heard him, he said a little bit louder, "I think I might've mixed Ron's broom up with a new... test subject broom... I just put Ron's broom in the lab. It wouldn't've been hard to mix them up."

I was beyond rage. "FRED!"

"Whoopsy daisy."

Yeah.

He did.

He said 'whoopsy daisy.'

Of course I had to laugh at that. Why is it that I can never stay mad at the boy? Why?

"Come on," Fred said, grinning, and wrapping me in a big hug. "I'm glad you're okay."

And, suddenly, I was really glad I was okay. Because if I wasn't, Fred wouldn't be able to hug me like he was. And it felt sort of nice being wrapped up in his rather large arms. All I have to say about it was that it was over way too soon.

So. A little bit embarrassing, I suppose, but not too bad up to this point. Well, just wait. It gets worse.

...To Be Continued.

A/N: Not the most interesting chapter, but I've already got the next one written. And I think that you guys will like it. A lot. Just bear with me. I'll post it within the next few days.