Chapter 20

After George and Hermione said goodbye to Mason and promised to find him as quickly as they could when they got back, they went back to the hotel for a restless night.
They got up early and checked the room twice before heading out. They went for breakfast at Time Square before heading to MACUSA for the last time. They were greeted by an elderly witch who guided them to the room they were going to use the portkey. It was a simple white room with several chairs back against the wall. The witch gave them a top hat and checked her watch.

"Five minutes." She said before giving them a small nod and left the room. George and Hermione stood in silence as they watched the top hat. And after exact five minutes the hat started to vibrate. They looked at each other before placing one finger each on the hat. They felt the tug behind their bellybutton and everything swirled before them and a few seconds later they fell to the ground in their dark flat. George dropped down his bag and went to open the curtains. Hermione sat down and George soon joined her. Hermione looked over at George before pulling out his wand as she tapped his head.

"That's better." She smiled at his red hair before she tapped her own head and the blond was replaced with her own brown hair color again.

"I like the blond better." George teased as he pulled on her hair. She slapped his hand away chuckling before silence fell to the room.

"So tomorrow." George said after a couple of minutes, staring in front of him.

"Tomorrow." Hermione repeated.

"So when the hour is up we will get send back to this date but hopefully another time line."

"That's what Luna said, we should end up in the same place we use the turner but a different date. I'll borrow Harry's cloak so it would be easier getting in the castle." She said borrow with a wink. "I can get it when he's away at work tomorrow and you could get everything ready we need."

"I can go down the shop tomorrow maybe there are some products we can use. Every little bit helps right?"

"Do you want me to go with you?"

"No, I think I'll be alright." He gave her a small smile. "So we leave for the castle at 10 tomorrow night."

"And we'll take the passage way under Honey Dukes. It takes a little longer but we don't want to be caught."

"And we use the turner in the cupboard not far from Fred and Percy."

"At a quarter to one." She nodded her head as they go over the plan, once again.

"Could you nick the Maraurder's map too? Just in case. We don't want to bump into someone tomorrow, I know we have the cloak but not quite sure it could cover us both."

"Yes -" she thought about it. "I think I could get it. Harry normally keeps them together anyway."

They went over the entire plan twice that day before getting something to eat and going of to their own beds in weeks. Hermione woke up in a panic, she glanced at the window, it was still pitch black. She grabbed her wand and whispered "Lumos" before she flung her legs out the bed and walked out her room. She saw that George's door was ajar and pushed it open. She looked in and saw that George was sitting straight up, looking at a picture in his hands.

"Georgie?" Hermione asked. George looked up in surprise and gestured her over. She walked over and sat down next to him. "Can't sleep?"

"No. You?"

"No. I think it's the nerves and the fact we slept in the same bed for weeks and now I'm not used to it anymore, sleeping alone."

"I know what you mean. I woke only a few minutes after I closed my eyes and the first thing I did was to look for you."

"Can I sleep here?" She looked over and George nodded as he pulled the blanket back before covering her. "What are you looking at?" She asked as she snuggled in the pillow.

"Picture of me and Fred. The day we opened the shop." He showed her the picture before he placed it back on his nightstand. "Come on, let's try to get some sleep. We'll need it." He kissed the top of her head before he sank in his pillow. "Goodnight Granger."

"Goodnight Weasley."

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The next morning Hermione apparated to Grimhauld, she slipped in as quietly as possible trying not to be heard by Kreacher. She tiptoed in to the hallway and up the stair, happily noticing the painting of Mrs Black gone. She slipped into Harry's room and went straight to his school trunk that was sitting at the foot of his bed. She clicked it open and pulled out the cloak and stuffed it in her beaded bag, right under the cloak laid the map. Hermione shook her head at Harry's predictability and also placed it in her bag. She silently closed the door and headed back down. She heard Kreacher whistling in the kitchen when she past the door, she hurried herself out the house and apparated back to the flat.

- FWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHG -

George was standing in front of the door to the shop. He took in a deep breath and opened the door slowly. The sun shined in through the windows and the shop looked totally fine, like there wasn't a war going on and the death eaters didn't destroy half of it. Lee must've got to work to get the shop in order. Every little thing that was broken was mended. The shelves were filled with their products and all the dust and sooth was gone. George took a moment to take in the room and walked over the shelves skimming them one for one, taking out the stuff that they might need. George placed everything in a box and when he was done he sat down on the floor and looked around. He didn't know how long he sat there fazed out but it took Hermione three tries to get him to focus.

"Georgie?" Hermione said gently as she placed her hand of his shoulder. He looked up in her brown eyes. "Are you okay? I've called you like three times."

"Yeah, sorry. I'm okay. Just zoned out a bit." He went to stand up but Hermione pushed him back down and sat down to him. "Did you get the cloak?"

"Yes and the map too. Kreacher was there but I managed to evade him. It's upstairs in my bag." She looked down at the box. "What did you find?"

"I got some things that might help. Thought we could go over them together to see what we can take with us."

"We'll take the box upstairs later. I just want to sit here a moment."

George hummed in agreement as they both gazed around the shop. George was so lost in thought as he reminisced about their days at the shop together he didn't hear Hermione speak, once again.

"Sorry what?" He asked.

"I just said that I loved it here. I loved working with you guys that summer."

"We loved having you here too. You already know how much Fred loved it but I did to." He glanced over at her. "We got closer that summer."

"Yes we did. I'm a glad for it. I can talk to you about things I can't talk about with Harry and Ron."

"You know I tell Freddie everything but it was nice having someone else's perception. I loved it when you worked on products with us."

"You just loved it because you could tell people that Hermione Granger worked on joke stuff."

George laughed and it echoed in the store. "Well yeah." He shrugged still laughing. "It's funny telling people things they don't expect."

"Hmm, well if tomorrow goes alright, we'll be telling people about Fred and me. Maybe you should bring a camera to capture their shocked faces."

"Maybe I should." He grinned.

- FWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHGFWHG -

Hermione didn't want Fred caught so the next time they saw each other was about a month later on a Hogsmeade weekend. Ron and Harry went to quidditch shop and Hermione disappeared and met up with Fred in the shrieking shack. They spent all day there before she headed back to the castle. Ron was getting suspicious with Hermione's disappearances and that she was continually writing someone but wouldn't tell who. But that all changed when Lavender kissed Ron in a full common room. She felt relieved that Ron didn't pay that much attention to her anymore but also felt disgusted at the fact that it was Lavender of all people. Couldn't he snog another witch who didn't look down on her.

The next time she saw Fred was at Christmas. He couldn't pick her up from the train station because her parents were going to pick her up so Hermione didn't see him until she arrived at the burrow on boxing day. Fred and George volunteered to pick her up at her parents place.
When Hermione heard the bell ring she sprinted downstairs with her bag, ready to open the door but her mother beat her to it.

"Good morning Mrs. Granger." She heard the twins say.

"Good morning. Fred and George was it?" Her mum asked nicely as she gestured them in.

"Yes ma'am. I'm Fred."

"I'm George." They saluted her which made her mum chuckle. Then Fred's eyes fell on her.

"Hermione." He breathed. George gave him a subtle shove and Fred shook his head an grinned. "Ready to go?"

"Yes." She turned to her mum and kissed her cheek. "I'll owl you. Give dad a kiss for me."

"Sure will honey. Have fun."

Fred and George bowed deep before leaving the house. When Fred, George and Hermione were out of sight of her mother and other muggles. George turned his back to them as Fred pulled her close.

"Hi love." He whispered before kissing her soundly.

"Hi." She smiled up at him. George cleared his throat before he turned .

"Let's get going lovebirds." George chuckled as he grabbed Hermione's stuff and apparated out.

"Better go before mum gets in a frenzy." Fred rolled his eyes. "Just one more for the road." Hermione giggled at his antics before he kissed her again. He held her close to his chest and apparated them just outside the burrows barrier. George stood their waiting for them as they walked towards the burrow Hermione squished protectively between the twins. The door of the kitchen flew open and Ginny came bouncing out.

"Hermione!" She yelled as she wrapped her arms around her. "Thank Merlin you are here. Ron is going nuts, he wants to open the presents about an hour ago but he had to wait until you got here. So you know Ron, he's been whining for the last hour."

"Let's get inside before your mum hits him with a spatula."

"Wouldn't be the first time." George muttered under his breath.

"Finally." Ron cried as he ran to the living room.

Hermione chuckled when Molly came over and gave her a bone crushing hug.

"Hermione dear, Happy Christmas. So glad you could come. Your parents didn't mind did they?"

"Happy Christmas Molly. No we celebrated yesterday and they have to work the rest of the holiday."

The matriarch nodded and pointed to the sandwiches on the table. "Do you want something to eat?"

"I had breakfast at home but thank you." She smiled up at Molly.

"Alright let's go to the living room before Ronald unpacks everything without us." She gestured the girls and the twins to the other room. Bill and Fleur sat by the fireplace and waved to her. Ron sat closely by the tree tapping his fingers on the floorboard. Ginny sat down next to her dad with Molly. Harry jumped up and gave her a hug and a Happy Christmas before sitting down next to Ron. The only ones that were absent was Percy and Charlie, who was still in Romania. The twins led her to the sofa and placed her between them once again.

"Who wants to go first?" Arthur asked as he rubbed his hands. "Ginny?"

Ron groaned as Ginny grinned at him as she picked a package from under the three and handed it over to Bill. This goes on about over an hour as they picked up gifts and handed it over. Oooh and Aaah, thank you's and I love it, ran through the room. Hermione got a scarf and hat from Molly in her favorite blue color with the letter H sewn on it. Ron and Ginny gave her a large box of sugar quills. Bill gifted her a new book on ancient runes while Fleur gave her a book on curse breaking around Europe. Harry first gave her a gag gift, a book: Learning to fly for kids. She chucked the book at his head before he gave her the real present. He gave her a simple bracelet with the initials of the one she loved. She had tears in her eyes as she hugged him tight.

George grabbed one of the last packages under the tree and handed it to her.
"It's from me and Fred. We worked on it for weeks and we finally perfected it."

Hermione raised an eyebrow at the two grinning faces next to her and she was afraid to open in but when she did she it wasn't what she expected. On her lap laid a simple small black notebook. She flipped it open but it was empty. She looked between the twins who laughed at her confused face.

"Harry told us about the two way mirror he got from Sirius." Fred started.

"And we tried to make one ourselves-"

"But it didn't quiet work out." Fred said with furrowed eyebrows.

"So we thought about other ways to contact each other that is considerably faster than owls."

"That's when we came up with this." Fred tapped the book in front of her.

"This is one book of a set. We have the other one. We charmed it so only we can read it."

"The moment you write something in it, it will appear on ours and vice versa."

"And if you write a name like Fred in the beginning of the sentence I won't be able to read it, only him."

"We are working on getting more books connected to it but no such luck so far."

"You two made this? You made this for me?"

"Of course love." The twins almost yelled gathering the others attention.

"You..you brilliant amazing wizards! I can't believe you!" She cried out as she hugged them both tightly and kissed them on the cheek. She got up and tossed them identical packages with orange and purple wrappers. She sat down between them again as they ripped it open. They both got new gloves and aprons for when they would work on potions.

"They are dragon hide, supposed to be indestructible. I branded you initials on it." She pointed shyly at the letter on the gloves and aprons unsure if they like it.

"Mione this is amazing!" George grinned wide as he pulled her close.

"I saw that the ones you guys were using this summer, they were falling apart. So I thought-"

"It's perfect Mione." Fred almost kissed her before he corrected himself and kissed her cheek. Before he pulled back he whispered. "I'll give you my present later."

"Right back at you." She whispered back and wiggled her eyebrows, chuckling as his eyes widened.