Chapter 10: A Slow Sunday
Hermione yelped. What sounded like the loudest knocking she had ever heard, jolted her from her sleep. She winced, the sliver of bright light from between the curtains made her head throb. She groggily pulled herself out of bed, flattened her hair the best she could, and opened the door to the man who had so unwelcomely woken her up.
In front of her stood Fred, looking as cheerful as ever in his vibrant magenta robes, holding a mug filled with a suspicious looking liquid. "Why do you look so… not hungover? You drank more than me." croaked Hermione, "And a good morning to you." Fred smiled sympathetically and handed over the mug, "it's a hangover remedy George and I made. I swear it's the only reason I'm not laying on the floor right now." Hermione took the mug gratefully and grumbled out her thanks. "Oh, I also wanted to head into the shop early today," Fred continued, "I wanted to transfigure you into Jean before I left, so you could take your time before coming down to the shop. Would that be okay?" Hermione winced, but nodded her consent. While she knew it was untrue, all of Fred's words sounded like they were amplified with a Sonorus spell. She closed her eyes as Fred transformed her features once again. Hermione could feel her hair become straight and weigh down on her shoulders. "Well I'll be heading out, feel free to sleep in, Sundays are less hectic." Before she could even thank him, he was off. Hermione's head hurt too much to question the reliability of the twin's hangover remedy. She downed the whole thing and immediately felt the throbbing in her head lessen. As she got into bed, she thought of Fred's parting words to her. Hmph, I never sleep in. And with that thought Hermione immediately fell back asleep.
Hermione woke up again, feeling immensely better. The light breaking through the curtains was not blinding anymore. She crept over to the curtains and peeked outside. To her dismay, Diagon Alley was bustling with witches and wizards. She had slept in. She went to the bathroom to freshen up and change back into the Weasley Wizard Wheezes uniform. The unfamiliar image in the mirror gave her a start, before she remembered Fred had transfigured her again.
As she got ready, she thought about how this Sunday would have gone if she hadn't come to the joke shop. She'd probably wake up as early as she could to avoid her two best friends. Most likely grab a couple muffins from the great hall before the majority of students came down and then go hide in her alcove all day. She would attempt to get ahead on her reading before having no choice but to head back to the dormitories.. Thankfully Hannah Abbot asked her to switch rounds this weekend, so she did not have to worry about missing out on her prefect duties. Hermione had a sneaking suspicion that Hannah's new found passion for weekend rounds had to do with spending time with Ernie Macmillan.
Hermione finished getting ready and made her way down to the joke shop. Although Fred had said Sundays were less busy, the store was still teeming with customers. She made her way through the crowd, trying to find Fred or Verity. She spotted Fred on the upper floor among a crowd of people, his showman persona on full blast. After being stopped a handful of times by customers looking for certain products, Hermione finally found Verity. " Verity, I am so sorry about being la-" "Oh! No no no Jean! You're barely late, the store's only been open for an hour" the beaming brunette cut her off, "Also Mr. Weasley told me you'd be getting in a few hours late, so I'm surprised you're here so early! Plus it's a slow day today! And-" Hermione smiled as the girl rambled on. She was starting to realize that the workers of Wesley's Wizard Wheezes did not understand what a slow day was.
After a few hours the crowd greatly thinned out. Every now and then people would wander in and out of the store, but Hermione found she had very little to do. She passed Verity who had been flirtily chatting with a tall, equally flirty witch for the last half hour. Hermione decided to wander about the store to look for Fred. She had been meaning to thank him for earlier. However, he was nowhere to be found. She had circled back towards the front of the store and saw the witch from earlier shoot Verity a wink before leaving the store. The mousy girl turned to Hermione, beet red in the face, fanning herself, "Oh! Jean! Hi! She was quite fit wasn't she? I think she was interested in me. She said she might swing by later. That's a good thing right?" Hermione grinned "Definitely! From where I was standing she seemed to be flirting quite hard. I'd say if she were any more interested in you, she'd have hearts floating around her head." Verity's face became bright red once again, all the way to her ears, and she hid her face in her hands. Hermione could hear the witch mumbling something that sounded like" brilliant" over and over again. She decided she would change the subject, to save Verity from getting even more flustered. "Have you seen Fred- uh, Mr. Weasley around?" "Oh! " Verity peeked out from behind her hands. "Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley work on research and development when we have particularly slow days like this." Verity pointed out the back room, which Hermione hadn't noticed, before bustling away to go check on the pygmy puff display, her face still quite pink.
Before heading to the back room, Hermione stealthily made her way back to the twin's apartment. She wanted to bring Fred some tea as a gesture of gratitude. Once it finished steeping, Hermione headed towards the back room. She knocked lightly, then slowly pushed open the door. The room was dimly lit, in the center of the room stood a ring-shaped table encircling a large bubbling cauldron. On the back of the wall were shelves filled with smaller cauldrons, simmering over small blue flames. The adjacent walls were lined with cabinets filled to bursting with jars and vials of various ingredients. Fred must not have heard the knocking, as he was sitting at the table poring over a scroll of parchment. She had never seen this side of him. Hermione rarely thought about how much effort it must take to create such incredible products as well as maintaining a business.
She lightly cleared her throat and Fred looked up. A brief look of confusion crossed his face before being replaced by a look of realization and his usual brilliant smile. "Hey there Hermione, didn't realize it was you for a sec. My transfiguration skills are too good." She rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless. "I didn't mean to bother you. You looked rather busy." "Oh not at all! Come sit down. Did you need something" Fred grabbed papers off of a nearby stool. "Oh I just wanted to come by and thank you for the hangover remedy this morning. It was incredibly effective!" Hermione perched herself on the stool beside him "Oh! I brought you tea and I've added a splash of Pepper-Up potion, since it's been rather chilly all day." Fred beamed and took the mug from her. "You're a gem, Hermione." He took a sip and continued on, "Glad the potion worked for you. You seemed bloody miserable this morning." "I was bloody miserable." She laughed. Fred gaped at her. "What?" She asked, almost laughing at his incredulous face. "Hermione Jean Granger! You swore!" He dramatically clutched at his chest, "What would your mother say?" She scoffed, "Well she would be much less dramatic than this." she said with a chuckle. "I've never been so betrayed in my life. I don't know who you are anymore!" He proclaimed, turning his head away theatrically. "Oh Merlin. You're ridiculous. I can't imagine how you will act if you ever hear me say fuck." Fred gasped so hard he began to cough, which sent Hermione into a fit of laughter.
Her laughter died down and Hermione found the two of them sitting in a comfortable silence. She listened to the ambient sounds surrounding them, the bubbling from cauldrons, the crackles of the fires, the muffled sounds of scattered conversation from the store. "You know Hermione," Fred called back her attention. "I really do prefer your curly hair." Hermione blinked, "What?" "To clarify, I generally prefer your original look to 'Jean's." But I mentioned your hair because when you laugh particularly hard, your curls bounce." She stared at him, breath caught in her chest. He continued on, "It's just a very 'Hermione' thing, and with your new straight hair. I kinda miss it." He shrugged and took a swig from his mug. What did he just say? Her heart was racing "Oh." she said airily. Calm down Hermione. "Well yes." She started. Trying to articulate a proper response despite the chaos going on in her head. "I rather prefer my curly hair too. This is rather jarring." She ran her hands through the long, black locks. He noticed the bounce of your hair when you laugh. Fred chuckled, "Well I was trying to make you look as opposite of yourself as possible." He said it was a very Hermione thing. What are other Hermione things that he's noticed? "Right" She said in a voice that was definitely an octave higher than usual. Am I blushing? Get it together!
"It looked like you were working on something when I came in. What was it, if you don't mind me asking?" Spouted Hermione, changing to a topic she felt much more comfortable with, research. "Oh that. It's nothing. George and I have been working on a product that deals with a lot of complex transfiguration magic. You know our Comb-a-Chameleon?" Hermione nodded, thinking of the hairbrush that would magically change the hairstyle of the user, regardless of age or gender .She had remembered it from her first visit to the joke shop, due to the name being a pun of a very well known muggle song. "Well, as you know we used pure Romanian celanese acetate, which is a great conductor for transfiguration magic. So now we're using the acetate again to create a mask. And ideally someone could hold the mask to their face for 30 seconds, and when they take it off they'd have different facial features. Kinda like Tonks." Hermione was enthralled, mind fully focused on the logistics of this mask. "It's why I've gotten so adept at human transformation recently." gesturing vaguely at Hermione. "What have you gotten done so far?" she asked. Fred pulled out a transparent, brown featureless mask from one of the cabinets and handed it to her. "Well, we brewed up a batch of Polyjuice potion," Hermione started inspecting every inch of it. Fred continued on, "After the last three anti-clockwise stirs, we added crushed amethyst, imbued with transfiguration magic. We brushed a layer of it to the inside of the mask." She looked up at him, teeming with excitement "Did it work?" Fred grimaced, "Not the way we were hoping. When George tried it on, his face kept transforming every thirty seconds. Had to bring him to St. Mungos to get it fixed." Hermione gaped, then immediately began to think of a way to control the transformation. "Maybe it's a matter of less amethyst to the potion. Though decreasing the concentration could make the transformation less effective." murmured Hermione. "My thoughts exactly" replied Fred, handing her the scroll of parchment he had been looking at. They were covered in scribbling that looked similar to muggle chemistry formulas. "I've been tinkering with the measurements, but I doubt anything on that parchment will help" Hermione's mind raced, "Maybe if you cast Finite on the amethyst, that might reduce the potency." "Unless it fully ceases the capacity for transformation." Fred retorted. "You could try topaz! I remember Snape said it was helpful for spell longevity." "Now that's an idea." He beamed, taking the scroll back from her, flipping it over, and began writing down the idea. "Though that could lengthen the amount of time between transformations," Hermione grimaced. "And the transformation magic might not take." agreed Fred. The two of them continued brainstorming ideas, filling out the entire back of Fred's parchment.
"I have to run it by George before I can start testing anything, but I feel really good about some of these!" Fred beamed at Hermione, "Thanks for brainstorming with me. Really got me out of my head." She grinned back at him, "Honestly, I had a lot of fun." she hesitated to continue, but went on, "Harry and Ron never want to talk about potions, let alone anything academic." she looked down so that Fred couldn't see her expression, knowing her sorrow would show up on her face. A few seconds of silence passed, and Fred cleared his throat. "Well I will always be up for a discussion like that." She looked up at him, who was smiling gently back at her. "I would be up for that too."She took a deep breath and tried to focus on something more positive. "Fred, would you like to go back to muggle London this afternoon?" Fred's eyes lit up, "Are we going to the cinema again?" "Oh yes! We could do that. I was thinking that we could go to a muggle magic show?" she asked nervously."Oh absolutely! That'd be wicked. I've gone to a muggle magic store before, but I haven't seen a muggle magic show in person." Hermione internally sighed in relief, "That's great, there should be one at 4 p.m. today." "Sounds wonderful…but how did you know about this? Do you know the schedule of all local muggle magic shows?" She blushed and began to ramble "Oh well you know, after I found out i was a witch my parents and I came to London to go shopping here and afterwards my dad thought it would be funny to watch a magic show. Then it ended up being a tradition for us to go and watch magic shows when we came to London for school shopping. We just think it's so silly and ridiculous and we always try to figure out how the tricks are done." Fred's laugh filled the room. "Hermione! Hermione! I was just teasing. I'm excited for it!" She took a deep breath. "Yes. Right. Well… I should go back out to the shop, I have left Verity to hold down the fort long enough. I will see you soon, then." She raced out, hearing Fred call out a goodbye as she left."
As she went about the last couple hours of the work day, Hermione couldn't help having a bounce in her step. She anticipated their second trip into Muggle London together. Fred had mentioned during their conversation about Matilda that he knew that muggle magic was all about illusion, but he did not understand how they did it. She anticipated hearing his theories and seeing his reaction once she revealed the tricks. Once the work day was over, she saw Verity off. Who happened to have been picked up by the attractive witch she had been flirting with earlier. She and Fred then went to Gringotts to deposit the earnings of the day and withdraw some more muggle money.. They walked back to the flat discussing the plans for the night. However when they walked through the door, they were surprised to find an equally surprised-looking George Weasley sitting at the kitchen table.
"I got back early from my trip," smirked George, getting up from the table to move towards them. "Didn't expect you to have company" his eyes met Hermione's. "What?" Fred replied flatly, and then looked down at Hermione as well. "Oh th-," George cut him off, "Aren't you going to introduce us? I promise I'll make myself scarce afterwards." he grinned mischievously. Hermione felt her face warm and she looked up, panicked, at Fred. She was surprised to see him just as flustered as she was. If she were to be honest, she thought the twins could never be embarrassed. "I-It's not like that!" Fred pulled out his wand and undid the transformations on Hermione. George's face transformed from his knowing smirk to looking fully dumbfounded. Hermione was struck by another instance of the familial similarities between the twins and Ron. The three of them stared awkwardly at each other. After what felt like an eternity of silence George broke the silence, "...Well. I'm getting a drink."
George plopped down in the armchair Hermione had occupied only a few days ago. She followed Fred's lead and perched herself next to him on the sofa. The twins were in deep conversation about Georges meeting in Scotland, but Hermione was very aware of her new pen-pal sitting beside her. Although she was excited to see George, as delightful as he was to be around; Hermione couldn't shake the nagging feeling of disappointment deep within her. "Oi, Hermione! You cold?" George jolted her from her thoughts. "Oh. I-" "Here!" He tossed her the handknit blanket from earlier. "Get comfortable, Mum knitted that so you know it's soft!" Hermione grinned, kicked off her mary janes, and brought her knees in, snuggling under the blanket. "Much better!" beamed George, as he reclined into his chair. "So. Hermione. Why are you here?" Hermione opened her mouth, but how was she going to explain this whole debacle? "I asked Hermione to come and help us with the 'Mask-a-morphosis' after she helped us with the themed Daydream Charm." Fred answered quickly, shooting an innocent smile at Hermione. "I'll hand it to you, Freddy m'boy, having the brightest mind of our age helping with R&D is a bloody brilliant idea." He took a swig of his drink and looked at her pointedly, "But– How in Merlin's sweaty left sock did Fred convince you to leave Hogwarts?"
The conversation continued on for a few hours, Hermione laughing and chatting with the twins, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Throughout the conversation, she couldn't help noticing the slight differences between the two men. She had spent so much time alone with Fred over the last couple of days, she had inadvertently gotten used to his little mannerisms. Fred tended to smirk more, while George preferred toothy grins. She never realized it before but George's features were a touch softer than Fred's. Fred's eyes were sharper opposed to George's ever so slightly rounded ones. The arches of his eyebrows were just a bit more angular. His jaw was a touch tighter. She found that Fred's laugh was heartier than his twins' and his eyes twinkled more, though that could have been Hermione's bias. She even noticed that Fred's cupid bow dipped ever so slightly deeper, but got flustered just as quickly before banning herself from thinking about his lips.
Shaking herself from these questionable thoughts, Hermione found herself drawn in by the twin's stories. Hermione laughed at George's impression of the Romanian vampire he swore came into the shop. She leaned back on the sofa and her heart froze. Fred had stretched earlier, letting one of his arms fall on the back of the sofa behind her.
Suddenly it was hard to focus on George's story again, in fact it was hard to focus on anything besides the warmth of Fred's arm.
The conversation finally ended when George decided to call it an early night and Hermione figured it was finally time to head back to Hogwarts before it got too late. She pulled on her cloak and mary janes, feeling a familiar feeling of sadness. Fred led her to the fireplace, grabbing a small bag of floo powder that was placed on the mantel. "It's a shame you have to head back, Hermione. It was really great having you around" Fred wore a kind smile, but she could see a hint of sadness behind his eyes "Be safe getting back to Hogwarts, alright?" Hermione tried to stifle her emotions and smile back, "I had such a wonderful time being here and I'd love to come back some time. Maybe not during the actual school year. Probably during the break and-" Fred cut off her rambling by enveloping her in a great hug. Hermione sighed and hugged him back. There was a part of her that wished that she never had to let go and leave the joke shop. However, the predominant part of her was anxiously cataloging the immense amount of schoolwork she had put off this weekend and was already trying to figure out how she could rectify this with so little of the weekend left. With that thought, she pulled away. She wrapped her cloak around herself, grabbed a handful of floo powder, and turned to the fireplace.
"Oh Hermione!" She turned back around. Fred beamed at her, "You should come by the Burrow for Christmas. It'd be great to see you again." Hermione felt her face redden. "Oh yes, that sounds lovely." she breathed. She shot Fred a quick, genuine smile and waved goodbye as she started her trip back to Hogwarts. She called out "Honeydukes" and walked through the flames.
As she made her way back through the tunnels, toward the castle, her mind was fixed on Fred's request for her to come to the Weasley's home for Christmas. If she wanted to accomplish that she would have to improve her relationship with Ron and Harry. She vowed to herself she would renew her efforts with them, alongside seeking out some new friends. If she had time, that is.