Disclaimer: Harry Potter and company belong to JK Rowling. "It's About Time," belongs to Lillix and their record label.
Author's Note: Sorry it took so long to write this chapter. I was going to post this chapter Thursday but then pain in the butt Isabel came and I couldn't use the computer for while. Sorry about the delay.
One of these days it all comes together
One of those days that goes on forever
Think I sound crazy? Maybe whatever
What's it all about?
It's about life
It's about fun
It's over before it has begun
It's about you
It's about me
It's about everything between
And I say, I say good bye to you
I say hi to you, no clue
It's about time...
It's About Time, Lillix
Chapter Three
Fred's POV
"What do you mean you don't know which apartment is yours?" I asked her.
Hermione sunk to her knees on the porch and burst out laughing. "I have no idea which one I live in."
"This is not funny." I said as serious as I could be even though it was rather funny to think you forgot which apartment you lived in. It was also pretty funny to see smart, serious, uptight Hermione sloshed and clueless.
Hermione stopped laughing and looked me in the eyes. "Can you help me get in?"
Well, what was I supposed to do? I couldn't just leave the laughing idiot on the front porch. "Sure, I'll help you." I sighed, pulling her up to her feet. Hermione smiled and threw her head back.
"I feel really good except for the part where I feel like I could hurl," she said to no one in particular. She was staring at the stars again as if they were the only things in the whole wide world that mattered to her. She was prettier than she was in school and had changed a lot since Ron and she broke up. Her hair was a lot longer and straighter and also a lot darker than it had been before. It was now such a dark chocolate color that you could almost mistake her hair for being black. Her eyes were bright blue and sparkling with the reflections of the night stars. Her skin was an unreal pale but it was because she had such contrasting dark hair now and since she was wearing all black like she does everyday now. Lavender really did her make-up well too. I wonder why she changed so drastically but it seems to for the better. At least looks wise. Her personality is weird. She has got this cynical side now, something she didn't have until she dated Ron. And the career she chose was something totally unexpected. It's like once she got through with Ron she became someone else. I watch her report all the dumbest things on the telly everyday. I can't help it partly because the telly is like the neatest thing in the world and partly because it is funny to watch the most serious girl in school report about bewitched salad tongs.
"Do you have your key?" I asked.
Hermione didn't peel her eyes away from the stars. "Yup."
"Can I have it to open the door?" I asked her patiently. She didn't look at me once again. No person, not even a sloshed one, stares at the stars that bloody long.
"Nope." She answered sweetly.
"Hermione, give me your purse," I demanded. Now this, the far more valuable item of the two (purse and key); she handed over as if it was nothing. I took the denim purse and nearly dropped it. It weighed like a million kilograms!
I pulled out a (very thick and hardback) book titled, A Brief History of Hogsmeade (That book so did not appear to be anything close to brief. I'd hate to see the unabridged version) Then I pulled out two hairbrushes, a flashlight (for reading in the dark, Hermione explained), batteries (in case the ones in the flashlight died, whatever that means), a celly fellytone (It's a portable fellytone. I asked Mione if I could use it but she said I might end up calling Indonesia or something which is ridiculous cause I don't even know anyone in Indonesia or even where it is for that matter.), her wand (the only important thing in the whole bloody thing well except for maybe her wallet), a map of Belgium (which looks nothing like the waffles by the way), but no key.
"Fred," Hermione whispered "Its Belgian waffles not Belgium waffles."
"You know what bites? The fact that you are completely sloshed and you are still smarter than I am." Pathetic, I know.
"I am not sloshed." She replied indignantly as she sat down on the porch.
I sat down next to her since it was obvious we weren't going to get in any time soon. "If you aren't sloshed, then I am Prince Harry."
Hermione looked confused. "I thought you were Fred?"
"Never mind," I said, shaking my head. We sat in silence until I had a brilliant idea. I mean, a very brilliant idea. "Alohomora!" I shouted at the door. And magically (ha ha) it opened.
"You can't open the apartments like that." Hermione giggled. "Only the main door. The apartment doors are spelled."
So now we were in. "What floor do you live on?"
"Seventh; the very top floor," She answered confidently.
We started up the flights of stairs well because Hermione was in no condition to apparate and I was also way too tired (from dealing with Hermione) to even try apparating myself. After what seemed like forever, we reached the top floor. "Um, Mione?"
"Uh, huh." She mumbled, laying her head against my arm.
"There are only five floors."
"They must have gotten ridden of the other two then." Hermione said, dead serious. It took all my might not to burst out laughing.
I assumed since she had aforementioned said that she lived on the top floor that this is what floor she really meant. Or else we were in the wrong apartment building. Hopefully, it was the first reason.
I looked down the hall. There were six apartments which the chance of picking the right one was like some percent...oh who am I kidding? I can't do math.
I picked the door closest to the stairwell and rang the bell. A high pitched yippy animal started growling which led me to believe that it wasn't her apartment. Crookshanks' growl is much deeper than that animal's.
The second one I knocked on, an older guy, maybe thirty five or so, answered the door. "Welcome to the party!" he roared, obvious that he, like Mione, had a little too much of something to drink.
"Sorry, we must have the wrong apartment," I apologized.
"Hey, aren't you that girl down the hall?" the guy asked, running his hands through his hair but his hair didn't stick up funny like mine normally does. Some guys just get all the luck.
Hermione paid no attention whatsoever. "No, it's her twin sister," I snapped, sarcastically.
"Oh, you look a lot like her," was his intelligent response. Okay, he got the gift of great hair but when they were giving out brains, he obviously thought they said trains and said 'no, thank you'.
"Well, tell your sister that she is pretty," he said to Hermione. I have no idea if he truly thought that Hermione had a twin or if he was being sarcastic.
"Would you leave her alone?" I snapped, suddenly feeling very defensive.
"Why?" was his second dumb response of the night.
"Dude you are at least twelve years older than her and ten years dumber." I snapped.
"Chill, dude!" the guy said, throwing his hands in the air. "Let her make her own decision."
Hermione looked at me and then at him before whispering, "Why is it that a carrot is more orange than an orange?"
This time I could not contain my laughter. I tried but I couldn't. I thought the timing in which she said it was hilarious. Apparently I was the only though.
"I was being serious," Hermione whined, looking at me.
"That is a good question," The idiot replied and he looked as if he was seriously pondering the question.
"Come on," I said, leading Hermione away from the dummy in the doorway.
"Bye, bye," she waved to the guy and he looked confused.
The third door had a door knocker that read The Parkers and the fourth door was wide open, revealing a teenage girl and her mother unloading groceries. That left two doors. I chose the one on the right.
A blonde haired boy about nine answered the door. "Hello?" he asked, eyeing Hermione.
"Lavender!" Hermione squealed and the little boy looked panicked.
"No..." He said, warily. "I'm Eric. You baby sit me and Michael on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays."
"I'm sorry," I stepped in before Hermione lost her job as a babysitter. "Hermione isn't feeling well and I was trying to take her home. I must have the wrong apartment."
Eric looked at Hermione and placed his hand on her arm. "I hope you feel better," he whispered to her. Then he turned to me and said, "She lives there." He pointed across the hall.
Now, somebody tells me where she lives! Of course, by this time though I had already figured out that that was her apartment was that was the only one I hadn't checked!
"Um, hey Michael was it?" I asked him.
He shook his head. "Michael is my twin. I'm Eric."
"Yeah. Do you have a spare key for her apartment?" I motioned to Hermione. "She locked hers in earlier."
Eric nodded and gestured for me to come in. I tried to pull Hermione in but she simply sank down to the floor, where I decided it would just be easier to leave her there rather than try and drag her in.
The apartment was fairly large and decorated entirely (well what I saw of the apartment) in a nautical theme. Eric led me into the kitchen area where his mirror image was sitting there with a deck of self shuffling cards.
"Took you long enough," Michael snapped. "Who are you?"
Eric looked at me as if he wasn't quite sure what to say. "Um, he's Mione's boyfriend."
"Friend." I corrected, hastily. "Just friend."
"Sorry," Eric said. "You look like the boy in the picture."
"What picture?"
"The one of her old boyfriend. It's on her dresser. But she won't talk about it." Michael answered for Eric.
"Ron." Eric replied. "His name is Ron. She says she doesn't like him."
"Oh, well I'm Fred," was all I could think to say.
"But she does," Michael finished and placed the deck of cards to the side next to a cast iron cauldron on the counter.
These were very intelligent nine year olds. "How do you know that?"
"Her eyes get all what's the word?" Michael asked Eric.
"Watery. And then she changes the subject." Eric said rather to Michael than to me.
"But she got rid of that picture." Michael pointed out.
"No. She just cut the part with Ron in it out. She left the picture of her and Harry." Eric countered. Then he turned to me. "Have you met Harry Potter? He is cool. Much cooler than Ron."
"We never met Ron," Michael said.
"But he made Mione cry."
"True."
These kids were definitely a lot smarter than I was at nine. If I had seen my baby sitter crying I probably would have just assumed she poked herself in the eye (that really does hurt) and never thought twice about it; much less have a conversation about it with some guy I didn't know.
"Here's the key." One of the twins waved it in my face. I couldn't tell which one it was though for they had both started moving around the kitchen simultaneously.
I had almost forgotten the whole reason I was standing in the kitchen decorated to look like a boat. I took the key and said good bye to the twins.
I came back into the hallway to find Hermione gone. Gone, as in not where I left her half asleep on the floor. I glanced around only to realize that her door was open.
"Mione?" I called into the apartment.
"Hi ya!" she squealed, jumping out from around the corner.
I jumped at least a foot in the air and the key went flying from my hand to only god knows where. She doubled over laughing.
"I found the key!" she laughed. Okay, Hermione drunk was actually quite weird. This whole first I'm-spaced-out, then I'm-completely-useless, and now her I'm-extremely hyper-mood thing was really weird. "Guess where it was?"
"Where?" I said, closing the door to the hallway. The lady unloading her groceries, was watching us.
"In my...pocket!" She said pausing for what I think she meant to be dramatic effect. She then spun around and nearly tripped for like the millionth time that night.
"I think you need to sit down." I said, picking her up off the floor as she rubbed her head from hitting the wall.
"I am fine," she giggled.
"Oh yeah, you're fine all right. That's why you just mistook a nine year old boy for your twenty three year old room mate." I said, guiding her into the kitchen. The kitchen was filled with stuff but didn't look like any of the stuff had ever actually been used for cooking. The coffee pot contained a small cactus like plant and the bread box was over flowing with newspapers that had haphazardly been stuffed in there. Mail filled a large salad bowl on the table, next to the sugar bowl which held several quills and the creamer which held the ink for them. I opened the freezer to look for ice to put on her head and guess what I found (not ice ) but stack upon stack of old Witch Weeklys. Not that the items in the refrigerator were much better. An array of objects including herbs (well I guessed they did belong in the fridge), some empty glass jars, a set of keys, three candles, two purple gumdrops, more mail, a few copies of the Daily Prophet, a single rose still in its cellophane wrapper from the florist, a sponge, a loaf of bread (I guess it didn't fit in the bread box because of all the newspapers), a set of headphones, a hand mirror, and a pack of stationary from Florish and Blotts. It was like walking into one of those weird find- what's-wrong-with-the-picture kind of things.
"They do look a lot alike," Hermione insisted.
I shook my head. "Sure, maybe if Lavender was a foot and a half shorter and Eric wore pink eye shadow."
Hermione let her head fall onto the table. "Are you okay, Mione?" I asked, gently shaking her shoulder.
"No." She hissed. "I feel like someone whacked me in the head with a bludger and then stuck me on a spinning tea cup ride."
Now that was hilarious. (Of course, I don't quite understand the whole bit about the spinning tea cup thing but I imagine it to be quite amusing to watch person sit in a tea cup, let alone a spinning one.)
I glanced down at my watch. It was nearly twelve. "Are you okay, Mione?"
"I am fine." She said. "I'll just sleep it off."
"I'll let you sleep then." I said.
"Good night, Fred," she called.
"Good night, Mione." I replied.
"Hey, Fred?" She said as I opened the door.
"What?"
"Thanks a bunch, Fred." She smiled. "Take care Fred."
"Bye, Mione."
She closed her eyes and laid her head down on the sofa cushion. "Love you," she murmered into her pillow.
I think my heart skipped a beat.
Sorry I had to tell this chapter from Fred's point of view because it didn't really work right with Hermione being out of it and all. I'm not sure yet, but I am thinking about switching back and forth between view points. Would you guys rather it be in just Hermione's point of view or both?
Thanks to everyone who reviewed.
