Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This is just a figment of my imagination

Chapter eight: A Special Way to Say Sorry

"And then, Christian told us about him dating this girl he met the last time he had gone to the doctors'. She had had an accident with her broom or something. Well, anyway, she stumbled into him and he was chivalrous enough to carry her into the waiting room." Tess giggled.

Hermione sighed. "I guess I should have tried getting into Healing after all. Perhaps then I would have met someone I could go out with. That brother of yours is lucky."

"Lucky? You should have seen the look on my mum's face when he said that his christmas present for her this year would be him finally getting married! If she hadn't been too shocked to react, he would have been tortured out of it. I don't call that lucky. And anyway, what are you talking about. You meet nice guys. Remember that story you told me a week ago? Nice guy...nearly kissing you...all that flirting..."

Hermione turned around with a snap.

"I don't want to talk about George." She said waspishly. "I never should have let myself get carried away like that. Oh, what is it with those Weasley men..."

Tess nodded. "I know what you mean. Don't get me wrong, but I don't understand how you let Ron get away."

Immediately she blushed, but Hermione just laughed.

"It's alright. I intercepted one of your letters to him. Don't worry, I didn't read it. But you'll understand why I let him go in due time. Perhaps I just knew him too well before we tried something."

Tess gave her a cheeky grin. "All the more reason for me to go and get what I want before I get to know him too well."

She hoisted up her skirt a few more inches. Hermione laughed. At that moment, Andersson walked by with a scowl on his face.

"Please stop horsing around. This isn't a brothel, miss Farlane. If I see you sporting one more skirt that doesn't reach your knees I will do more than just give you a reprimand."

"Wow, someone had a holiday hangover." Hermione muttered once he had once again locked himself in the conference room he shared with Vivian Kramer.

Tess sighed. "Well, I suppose he has a point. If a client walked through the door and saw us mucking about he could lose interest in this company. And they'd take it out on us. And I for one need to be on the payrole. The rent price isn't getting any cheaper."

Hermione opened her bag and pulled out a small pile of paper. She smiled at Tess.

"I know what you mean. I spent a huge part of my holiday working. I even got some stuff done for class."

Tess glanced at the clock in the lobby. "Well, all that work sounds like you've deserved a break since you didn't get one during the holiday. How about you and me go clubbing tonight?"

Hermione hesitated. "I dont know..."

"I know this really cool place on Portobello Road..." Tess said teasingly. "It's the only wizarding place there, but it's really cool."

Hermione bit her lip.

"Oh, come on. You can go out and meet lots of cute wizards, better looking and more charming than the George Weasley who left you hanging."

But Hermione shook her head. "No, I don't think I'll go. I'm still a bit bummed out about myself. I just can't understand why I fell for him in the first place, but I'm very keen on getting over it. And I don't need lots of cute wizards to help me do that."

Tess pouted. "So now you're going to leave me hanging? What's a girl to do these days..."

"Well, you could spend your night doing something usefull. Or harass Ron if you like. I'm going to have a quiet night in with Crookshanks and my telly."

She packed one set of copied files back into her bag and took her coat.

Tess shrugged.

"Perhaps I'm going to Christian's to prevent him from signing a wedding contract. He would do something silly like that if he felt like it." She took her coat as well. "I'll see you tomorrow, then. I start at eight. You?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, I'm not working tomorrow. I've got class. Cindy's filling in for me."

Tess scowled. "Wonderful. Airhead Cindy. She's so superficial that if you fell down a hole as shallow as her, you'd just bump your toe."

Hermione laughed. "She seems alright to me."

"She never came on to you during a company party, too sloshed to the bone to realise you were in fact not Ben from accountings." Tess said viciously. "I never want to be reminded of that again."

Hermione grinned. "No? You should be sorry you just told me, then."

"Oh, come on. Not even you are that cruel."

"...That's true. Well, I'm off. A whole night of bad programming awaits me."

Hermione slung her bag over her shoulder and waved at Tess as she walked out the door. The air was cold and still had that wintery smell. She headed down to the muggle part of London where she rented an appartement she could barely afford.

She didn't feel very at ease, walking through the city at night, but she tried to avoid apparating within short distances, because it made her incredibly nauseous. She turned another corner and stopped quickly when an ambulance rushed by. Another thing she hated about the city; those alarms and sirens going off all the time.

She was relieved when she had reached her building. It was in one of the good neighboorhoods of the city and she greeted the man at the door happily.

"Evening mr. Forbes." She said cheerfully.

"Evening." He greeted back.

This was the porter, who was only being kept on by the owner of the building because they were good friends. She walked up the stairs and fumbled for her keys. Once inside her appartement, she threw her keys on the kitchen counter and walked over to the phone.

Clamping the horn between her shoulder and cheek, she walked over to the clothespeg on the wall and hung her coat on it. She ordered a pizza from her favourite pizza place and then flipped the light switch on so she could see where Crookshanks was.

The cat yawned and crawled off the couch. He twisted around her feet a few times and then climbed back onto the couch again. Hermione sighed and placed her bag on a chair. She pulled out the Emmerdale files she had copied for herself and slapped it on the table

She opened a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of wine to go with the pizza. She sat down and wanted to start her college work on the files when there was a knock on the door.

"Blimey, they're fast..." she muttered.

She grabbed her wallet and rushed forward to get the door. She opened it as she searched through her wallet .

"I'm sorry, I don't have any small change." She said without looking up. "I hope that's not a problem."

"Depends on what you're paying for." Said someone, sounding very amused.

She looked up feeling utterly embarassed. "George! I was expecting the pizza guy..."

"Well, I'll leave if you want me to."

She shook her head. "No, no...Come in."

George accepted the invitation and walked inside.

"I hope I wasn't interrupting anything." He said, eyeing the bottle of wine on the table.

She quickly got out a second glass. "Actually I was going to do some homework...But that can wait."

Even though she had told Tess and herself that she wanted nothing more to do with this boy, she couldn't help blushing when he looked at her. He quickly averted his eyes.

"So...what made you come here?"

"Well, I was hoping you had some news on our case..."

"Not really. I talked about the problem with mr. Hoot this morning and he said he's looking into it. But he went out at lunch and won't be back in till Thursday. He's an old man so he's not allowed to work too much."

George sat down. "Oh, that's too bad. I was hoping we could talk about it tonight."

"We can still do that!" she said hastily. "I mean, I have thought about it some more."

She gulped down her wine quickly before something even more silly would come out. George grinned and quickly emptied his glass too, not wanting to me impolite.

"Really? So what do you think?"

He took the bottle and refilled their glasses. She drank half of it to calm herself down before she answered. What was wrong with her? It hadn't been this bad at the Burrow.

'But now the two of you are alone. In the Burrow there were others walking around who could walk in.'

"Well...I, er, Zonko needs to show some proof, doesn't he? He can't just accuse you of something if it's not true. If he took you guys to court with out some evidence, he'd probably end up losing and paying your fees."

She took another gulp of her wine and sat down on the couch next to him.

'Calm down.' She told herself.

She felt like a little silly schoolgirl with a crush. She watched him drink his wine silently. She was surprised to see that the bottle was nearing the bottom already. Finding another excuse to get up and do something, she stood up and went to get some more wine from her cupboard. At least that way she would have a glass filled in case she needed time to think of an answer.

'And the alcohol can calm me down.'

She set the bottles down on the table and filled their glasses again. George had, in the mean time, taken off his jacket. He patted the seat next to him.

"So, what if he shows up with something he calls proof?" he asked.

"Then it would be up to us to show that his 'evidence' is false."

"And how would we do that?"

"Depends on what he presents, basically." She said.

When he took another sip of his drink, so did she. She knew she was going to cross her limit soon, if she kept this up. But she needed to calm down.

But every time he looked at her, said something, or even brushed his arm against hers accidentally, her heart pounded just a little bit faster involuntarily. It felt like someone was driving a nail through her chest.

So, as only remedy she could think of, she emptied her glass once more. Soon the second bottle was empty, and George opened a third one without Hermione noticing. She seemed really tense.

He guessed that was because he had behaved so badly towards her the last time he had seen her. He felt guilty, because he hadn't meant to hurt her at all. He had wanted quite the opposite.

Taking another sip, he decided it was time for him to do what he had come by for. To apologise. If he wanted to have a chance with her, that was what he needed to do. He turned towards her, feeling a slight tingle in his head and a more fierce one near his heart.

"Hermione?"

She looked almost frightened. "Yes?"

Her head seemed to spin a little.

He turned away again and looked ahead of him. She did the same, both of them now staring at the black tv-screen. Suddenly he placed his arm around her shoulders. She hiccupped out of shock and, though with widened eyes, chose to ignore it. What else could she do?

"I'm sorry." He said.

She didn't look at him. She didn't dare.

"For what?" she barely dared to ask.

"For what I did at the Burrow."

Her heart fell. So he didn't like her after all. He had just been playing a little game. It had just been the mistletoe, then.

"Doesn't matter." She said coolly, taking another sip from her drink.

George didn't say anything. The silence was horrible, but somehow her ears were filled with some sort of dull humming that always bothered her when she had been drinking more than she had intended. She felt his hand against the back of her head, his fingers playing with her hair.

She wondered if he even knew what he was doing. She looked at the clock and saw that the time had somehow jumped from six p.m. to two a.m.

She turned her head back to look at George, wondering if he had noticed the time passing by so quickly. His eyes looked misty, a sign that he had been drinking a little more than he had intended too. She cast her eyes down to look at her hands in her lap.

Suddenly she felt something that could only have been a feather light kiss on her cheek. Her eyes opened wide with shock. Then she felt another. She bit her lip and tried to ignore it, sure that he had just been a little too careless with the wine himself.

But she felt another kiss...and another...

"What makes you so...affectionate all of a sudden." She said quietly.

He stopped and tried to get her to look at him. "...You do."

Suddenly she looked at him and his eyes didn't let her gaze go.

"Wha-" she managed to say.

He tried to find some encouragement in her eyes and moved his head forward. Before she had really processed what was happening, he pressed his lips against hers.

Her head started spinning all over again and she closed her eyes. When she didn't kiss back, he pulled away and looked at her.

Had that really happened?

She looked at him, searching for an answer. He kissed her again and slowly she started to kiss back this time, careful and cauctious. She placed her arms around his neck so he couldn't pull back again.

This was really happening.

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AN: Well, I know Luli's going to hate me for updating this soon, but this chapter just needed to be posted today, I realised. I'll just quickly explain why: Today is my one year aniversary with my boyfriend so that makes me feel just that little bit extra lovey-dovey right now. And besides that, the dialogue at the end of this chapter isn't all just made up! ;) Some of it was actually voiced to me by him a year ago, (me being in the place Hermione was now), but I'm not going to tell what bit!

Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter! Yay for Hermione/Twin!