When Hermione reached home, she went straight to her bedroom for a change of clothes and a towel before going for her bathroom.
Thinking back to the explosion, Hermione had wondered why the potion had exploded like it did. Fred had claimed, seeming 100 percent sure of himself, that it wouldn't explode with that item in the recipe, but it had exploded anyway. But why?
Of course, the potion wasn't in the final stage of production, seeming as it was still boiling on the heat and the ingredients were being added one-by-one by Fred as they had been talking.
'There's no way the smoke stinger egg went in last...' and by her knowledge of potions, she knew a recipe had to be completed or else disastrous consequences would follow. ' It wouldn't have exploded had Fred completed the potion... ' she knew she was right. Either he hadn't stirred enough or added enough of an ingredient, she knew that had been the reason for the explosion.
After numerous apologies given out by the twins, especially Fred who hadn't intended for any of it to happen, Hermione had finally let up and told them that it was all forgiven and forgotten and that she wouldn't utter a single syllable of the incident unless they apologised to her one more time. After that, they had stopped apologising and she sighed her breath of peace and quiet before excusing herself to the Floo that Fred had offered her to go home. She was rather thankful that he hadn't made her go home covered in goo by leaving the store and onto the street where everyone could see her. She hopped right into the floo and, with a wave of goodbye to the twins, she sent herself home and proceeded with her plan.
She stripped off her ruined clothes and hopped into the shower, turning on the nozzle to hot, and began trying to get the liquid off. "Why does it have to be so sticky?" She grumbled angrily as her fingers tried to remove the sap-like liquid from her skin.
Upon reaching a momentary success with certain splatters, she noticed how they had left little blotches of purple coloured potion. ' Likely a dye they added. ' she concluded, attempting to scrub them off to no avail. She decided she might just cover them with a glamour or liquid foundation if they were still apparent by morning.
As She scrubbed, she thought back to the moment when George had walked in to see his twin brother and Hermione covered in purple goo from head-to-tie and they had all busted out laughing, eventually all falling to the floor in laughter after she had gone off on an angry rant for a few minutes.
When they had recovered from their fits of laughter, Fred had explained to George the situation with the Egg and the illegality of the possession of such an item.
They'd both agreed rather quickly that they would hand them over and she had agreed in her own mind that she would leave them a few galleons for their compensation, seeing as the eggs themselves were very valuable, yet she questioned herself of how they had gotten their hands on them in the first place.
But her mind kept wandering to the entire situation with Fred and the goo.
It had been hilarious to watch the universe go against Fred like that, jinxing every single sentence he said about the potion not blowing up. She had taken pride in that even if she was covered in the icky goo.
She had asked him in that moment, seeing as he was also covered in goo, to help her find out if any of the potion had gotten onto her neck, arms and scalp, seeing as they were experimenting with an untested potion. All of her years of learning had taught her that she always had to know what and how the potion might affect her.
And messing with Amortentia was no laughing matter.
She remembered vividly as the goo heated slightly whenever he would move her hair over, the goo burning her neck whenever he brushed his fingers along her collarbone to move the tamed curls.
Even now it felt like it was heating her skin all over again.
The days following the explosion of goo had Hermione suffering through all kinds of odd moments.
First, the lavender blotches had been causing a nearly-impossible-to-ignore flicker of heat to form on her skin, and she had quickly discovered that the areas the substance covered were none too pleasant, and some were more than others.
She had discovered large blotches on her mid-thigh, bum and stomach, places that were sensitive to her.
When she went to work, it would feel like someone had their hand placed on her thigh the entire time, yet the heat seems to move from blotch to blotches with no warning. The heat had slowly flickered onto her bum and stomach and she had almost sighed in relief at the feeling in the middle of a meeting. she had blushed a bit and discarded it as a yawn to whomever had the balls to ask her directly about it.
The second effects were a bit different. They caused more of a tingling. Yet the tingling and the heat seemed the perfect mix together, it was not pleasant to have the mix at work.
But she knew she would need to deal with the issue at heart sooner rather than later, but the issue would have to wait as she had to go over to the Weasleys' that afternoon for the family picnic in the orchard.
Bringing in a large basket, Arthur plunked down the handwoven object and uncovered what looked to be fresh apples from the orchard in the back, oranges, mangoes, and a few branches of grapes, adding to the vibrancy of the food on the table. The first two to dive into the basket were Fred and Ginny, each launching for a mango, practically trying to kill each other for the bigger one.
Hermione watched in horror as George was attempting to go into the basket, only to be swatted away violently by Ginny, who had been forced to grab a smaller one because Fred had raised his wand in response to her grabbing the larger one at the same time as he had.
She watched Arthur carefully grab the basket away from the two siblings and promptly passed out the grapes to Fleur for her two daughters.
Meanwhile, as each person reached for a fruit, Hermione kept glancing over at Fred, who seemed oddly concentrated on cutting his mango in half despite the pit in the middle. Hermione had never seen such determination in anyone's eyes before. There was an intense fire there and she was confused as to why.
"Fred...? It's just a mango..." she mumbled.
"Exactly. It's a mango." He said back without taking his eyes off the prize in his hands. She watched him cut a large portion of the peel, lots of the Fruit's meat left on it, get engulfed into his mouth without a second thought more. Though she expected him to just chew it and move on, he started sucking on the peel avidly, his eyes closed in bliss as he licked and nibbled on the skin, savouring every minuscule piece and leaving none behind.
"Calm down Freddie, it's a mango, not a girl." George commented with a snicker, only to get a grape thrown to his face by Fleur who was feeding Dominique a few seats away. Hermione looked around at the table and noticed Ginny looking at anywhere but her brother, and found the guys giving him odd looks.
It got Hermione thinking. Was this always how he ate the fruit? Then she thought about George's comment. She turned back to look at Fred, and then she noticed how he was sucking and nibbling on the peel, trying to get every little piece off from the peel. And she thought back to the comment again. ' Not a girl. ' George had said. No, she didn't want to be kissed like that, she concluded in her head. She turned away to ask Fleur for a branch of grapes, stopping before she asked and catching a glimpse of the flustered cheeks on Fleur and the very incognito glances of slight envy she was giving the piece of mango peel.
'Not kissing... ' she Immediately thought. She looked back and realised her mistake. And now she felt the heat flaring brightly in her senses, the tingling strong in the mix of unusual effects. But the sensations were strong enough to have Hermione shifting positions every now to relieve the heat from her mid-thighs, arse and stomach.
And she realised that she envied that slice of mango more than anything in that moment.