Fred Weasley did not have much experience with relationships on the whole, despite what the gossip wheel at Hogwarts and his mothers screeching may have you believe. He has gone on a few superficial 'dates', at the request of someone else, to Hogsmede and shared a few kisses that toed the line of snogging but that was it. The girls he 'dated' were always very clear at the end of the date that this was not a relationship and that come the morning they would be friends again.

He was not the Casanova the rumor mill or his mother would have you believe.

He was quite stupid when it came to romance or more specifically romantic feelings.

That being said, despite his limited knowledge, he was pretty sure you are not supposed to wake up one night and realize you have feelings for your baby brother's best friend. Especially when it is the baby brother's best friend who your mother and most people around you have determined is in love with said baby brother.

Though as we already established he would struggle to deem either of those sources credible.

His brain felt as if it was buzzing and spinning around like a spinning top beehive and more than once, as they packed up the campsite and made their way to the port key point, his siblings commented on his distracted nature.

George, ever the best human ever, noticed it fairly early and tried his hardest to play both twins to those a bit less prone to believe something was amiss: Percy, Ron, Harry, even after the events of last night Dad and Charlie. But his interference did little for the others including the center of Fred's problem who kept looking over with a puzzling look on her face. Then turning around and blushing each time a twin caught her.

Once they return to the Burrow safe and sound and a bit deaf from their mothers screaming, Fred takes a moment in his room to revel in the mist of what could only be described as a crisis of cataclysmic proportions he confides in George. Hoping his brother can help him rationalize his feelings away.

George laughs.

Not chuckles, not snorts, but full on belly laughter. Bending over clutching his stomach and slapping his knee as if Fred's emotional turmoil is somehow a joke. After a few moments Fred lets out a chuckle and hits George's shoulder a non-verbal cue that the joke had gone too far. Or at least that is what it is supposed to be. George, the prat, just looks up at him tries to school his features but then breaks out into another round. This time Fred's punch to George's shoulder isn't so soft and George returns the gesture by grasping at Fred's middle and trying to wrestle him backwards. Fred twists and uses the momentum against his twin, sending them both crashing to the ground. Fred reaches to his bed and grabs his pillow to smack George while George struggles to flip them over to do the same.

And so comenses an epic pillow battle the likes of which the burrow hadn't seen since before their Hogwarts days. Amidst the flying pillows Fred manages to pin George against the wall that holds their door. His own laughter now so hard his vision has blurred from tears. So as George absconds from the room making a break for the stairwell and grabbing someone along the way Fred does the same, hearing the feminine squeal and in the midst of the battle forgetting that Ginny was not the only young witch at the burrow. So as he dives behind the couch to avoid a ball of yarn that is chucked like a grenade from the other side of the living room he startles at her voice.

"Fredrick Weasley, what in the world do you think you are doing?" Comes the exasperated tone of one Hermione Granger. As his eyes focus on her he shutters. In his overzealous attempt to avoid the yarn bomb he had dove onto the floor pulling her down with him and pinning her against the multicolored rug. Landing atop of her with his extended arms being the only thing keeping his chest from touching hers. Her hair is pulled up into a messy knot of Curls atop her head, her slightly oversized red night shirt is askew as he has pinned it under his right hand. She has shorts on, not the short scandalous kind that are prone to drive men to distraction but long shorts that are shapeless and fall almost to her knee, but it shows off more of her skin and the amount of normally unseen skin is mesmerizing. He is entrapped in looking at her for a good minute before she reaches up to touch him and he startles.

He lets out a sound that is somewhere between a cough and a hum to answer her previously posed question.

"Pillow fight?" He offers weakly with a grin standing up and offering her a hand to do the same. Thankfully there are no yarn balls being chucked as he rubs at the back of his neck.

"Is that a question?"

"We may have gotten a bit carried away if I'm honest." Fred says.

"We'll try to control it." She huffed and turned on her heel to retreat back upstairs "Some of us are trying to read." She said, catching the eye of Ginny and George as she went. Fred twists to lean against the back of the floral couch and watch her assent.

Fred waits until he hears Ginny's door open and close before leaning back to flop onto the couch in defeat. His backward momentum is only being impeded by the yarn ball that hits his head squarely. He grabs the nearest couch pillow and deflects a few more hits before…

"FRED AND GEROGE WEASLEY!….." he flinches at the sound before standing up to face his mothers rath head on and with no small amount of sarcastic comment to boot. At the beginning Ginny looked as if she was going to defend them but both George and he knew it would be of little help so they shook their heads and offered her a get out of trouble free card in the form of blocking the stairs for her assent. After their lecture they retreated back into their room. George picks up a discarded pillow on the way to flop himself sideways onto the bed. Fred followed suit a second behind.

"Two years Forge." Fred offered as he pillowed his head in his hands. Hating the fact that George's smile had fallen away as soon as they hit the stairwell, knowing his twin took their mothers lectures harsher than others. Knowing that like all Weasleys before them, loving their family didn't mean they weren't counting down the days until they were able to strike out on their own.

"Two years Gred." George replied.