Hello, welcome to my first published Fremione. Updates weekly.

This is and AU in New York City focused around music, ballet, and angsty arty goodness. Please note I know nothing about ballet or music but my lovely beta does so hopefully we catch anything. Musically terms and references will be in the notes section.

A special thanks to:

Danny, my resident New Yorker who has no idea why I am asking him so many questions.

My beta Emily, who keeps my dialogue readable.

To Previous Readers:

Hi... I know this is like my 3rd WIP but don't worry. It's already done. I am just editing to post now. Maybe 10-15ish chapters. Sorry. I don't know why I am like this. I hope you all enjoy it even though it is not Dramione. It is every relationship/ character developing. U

Note to Snitchseeker: First off get an account so I can PM you. Second I know it's not a dramione but I think you might really like this one. There will be a few smut scenes but if you would like I can mark them so you can skip. Your call, just let me know. I am super in love with what I have done here and would like to give you the chance to experience it.

"This is not a skim flat white Granger."

"You're right. It's donkey's milk. I found it fitting… You know. Since you are an ass." Hermione took great pleasure in the way Malfoy scowled at her.

"You're trying to get me too fat to perform."

"No need, your addiction to shitty take out is doing that for me."

"This is why scholarship students shouldn't be allowed. Mingling with the layman makes you bitter and slow." Malfoy scowled from across the counter even as he sipped at his drink. It was, of course, a perfect skim flat white, even if he couldn't admit it. Her ethics would never allow her to make anything less than perfect, even for him.

"There are plenty of other coffee shops in New York," she said. "Go to one of those and leave me in peace."

"They all have shitty beans. It's un-fucking-drinkable."

Hermione paused, glaring at the blonde before shouting over her shoulder to her boss in the back.

"Tonks!"

"Yeah?" came the answering reply through the door.

"We need to switch beans to whatever the Beanhive uses."

"Why? Their coffee sucks."

"Yeah but Malfoy says he will leave us alone if we have worse beans."

Both she and her patron stared at the door. After a moment Tonks popped her bright green head out with a placid smile on her face.

"I'll put in an order today."

"Fuck you both." Malfoy scowled before dropping a tenner in the tip jar.

"And fuck you, little cousin. See you at Easter. I'll try to keep my mother away from the good silverware."

He barked a laugh and half-waved goodbye before exiting.

Hermione had a rocky start with him and most of Julliard when she started. Raised in the rural midwest, she didn't have a lot of opportunities for ballet. Most of what she learned up until high school was self-taught after watching an old taping of Swan Lake over and over again until the VHS film wore down. She copied alongside it step-by-step until she could do it in her sleep, fascinated by the beauty and grace of the women on stage. After that, she checked out every book, movie, and audiotape from the library, determined to become a ballerina.

It wasn't until high school when she started lessons at the YMCA a forty-minute drive from her town. It wasn't the most rigorous training but all her parents could afford.

As luck would have it, a Ballet Mistress from Julliard had broken down in the middle of the town and was waiting for repairs when she passed the window of the auditorium. Minerva McGonagall took one look at Hermione and insisted she audition for the Ballet program when she graduated high school.

She spent the next few years in training. Her parents poured every cent of extra cash they had into summer programs and local lessons. Both picked up second jobs to funnel the money into Hermionie's dream and it had paid off.

Three years ago, she was accepted into the Juilliard School of Dance on a full scholarship.

From her very first class, it was clear that her situation was special. Mistress McGonagall only ever taught senior students directly and even then only upon recommendation. When Hermione showed up to her first class she was shocked to find herself surrounded by the ballerinas she had already seen gracing the stages of the Met and the New York Stage Theater.

She worked exceptionally hard; Mistress McGonagall demanded excellence in all of her students. Eventually, she earned her place, dancing lead alongside Malfoy in almost every major performance since her freshman year. It was difficult for him to come around but after enough perfect shows, he was forced to concede that she deserved to be there. As much as he complained he was an excellent partner and she would trust no one else. They had just completed the Christmas Nutcracker performance and were starting a new routine so he was extra bitchy lately.

Hermione was in the middle of refilling the espresso machine when the door chimed again. She shouted over her shoulder, trying to set the bag down and balance on the step ladder at the same time.

"Welcome to 'The Den' just one sec-"

She was suddenly swept off the ladder by strong arms wrapped around her waist. There was a flash of wild, black hair that disappeared as she was swung around with a yelp.

"You okay out there?" Tonks shouted from the back.

"Just us!" A familiar booming voice answered back. By the time Harry had set her down she was dizzy and still trying to catch her breath while maintaining a glare at the very first friends she made in New York.

"Harry! You can't be back here. It's against the health code."

"We don't need to worry about that." Ron smiled from the other side of the counter (where Harry should have been standing). "We have badges of our own."

Hermione took the moment to examine her friends. Her eyes immediately shot to the gleaming silver badges reading precinct number 0012. Beneath the polished metal, their last names were emblazoned on small strips pinned to the dark blue uniform. It could only mean one thing.

"Boys! You passed inspection!"

She hopped over the counter to give Ron a welcoming hug as well, ignoring the awkward stiffness of the movement. They had broken up while he was still in the academy with Harry. Hermione just couldn't handle the idea of him coming back to her hurt then galivanting back into the fray the next day. They had made up months ago but it was still awkward settling back into friendship.

"Yup. You're looking at the newest beat cops for Grimmauld Place."

Harry started making himself a latte on the other side of the counter. His motions were practiced and smooth. They should be considering he had worked at the Den for years until he joined the force.

"Talk about a snooze fest. I was hoping for something in Harlem, where things really happen," Ron complained, stealing the steaming cup Hermione had been drinking prior to their afternoon arrivals. He took a sip and promptly grimaced. "Jesus 'Mione, is this straight espresso?"

"Four shots, with some milk for color," she responded primly, swiping the cup back. "And Grimmauld place is an excellent neighborhood to start. It is quiet and safe."

"Bah! I didn't become a cop to be safe. I want action, heroics, a chance to save lives," Ron said

Though she would never admit it out loud, Hermione thought that Ron had serious middle child syndrome. His parents owned an orchard upstate that only maintained itself because it had been in the family for so long. With seven children, he never went hungry but often found himself at the end of a long line of hand-me-downs.

It was an unsaid fact that the family could stand to make a fortune off the land should they ever sell it, but his mother had outright refused the idea of giving up her home.

Hermione ignored Ron's comment, turning back to Harry who still was fiddling with his drink, getting it just right.

"Sirius must be thrilled."

"Not really," Harry said with a shrug, carefully dragging the foam across his design to finish off his tulip. "He said he now has connections for when he needs to be bailed out."

Harry's godfather, Sirius, had taken him in when his parents died in a car crash right after he was born. Harry's parents had been famed politicians that had spent their time working on establishing fair tenant rights in the Bronx and were working on the other boroughs when they suddenly passed away. The whole city had mourned for them.

Sirius, however, had stepped up from his bachelor lifestyle to finish raising Harry but had slipped back into it now that Harry was grown. The first time Hermione had met the well-bred man she had smacked him when he made a comment about her flexibility. It had quickly endeared her to him and he all but adopted her as well.

"You gonna leave him in the drunk tank?" she questioned.

"Yup."

Harry smiled and sipped on his drink, taking the long way around to return to the customer's side of the shop. Harry glanced around at all the clockwork gears and automatons, newly placed on the wall.

"Steampunk this month?"

"This week," Hermione groaned. "Tonks has already started to purchase the décor for a greenhouse theme."

'The Den' had an identity crisis of sorts. Tonks could never seem to make up her mind about how she wanted the place to look. Eventually, the theme of the place became 'never the same shop twice' and regulars visited whether it was post-millennial goth or k-pop candy. The coffee stayed the same at any rate, which is all the regulars really cared about in the end.

"How's Molly taking it?"

Ron broke into a wide smile before leaning in closer to Hermione.

"Not worried in the slightest."

"Oh really?" she asked doubtfully.

Molly was the definition of a doting mother to all of her children despite having so many. With Bill off working as an archaeologist and Charlie discovering a new breed of lizard in Romania, she held on even tighter to her stateside children. Hermione was surprised she had even let Ron take on such a dangerous career.

"Yup. Too busy worrying about the twins. It's why we're over here actually. Mom sent us to check up on them."

"What did they do this time? I haven't seen them around lately."

Fred and George attended Juilliard as well and were notoriously troublesome, frequently ditching their classes to play in the quad or trying to sneak modern pieces into classic concerts (occasionally with success). They were both scholarship students in the School of Music but with a campus as large as Juilliard, they rarely crossed paths with Hermione. She would occasionally glimpse them around campus in a flash of bright red Weasley hair or hear a loud, easy laugh amongst a sea of high strung artists. For a long time she had resented them for goofing around and not taking their admission seriously, but that changed the first moment she heard them play.

Her fellow dancers had called them a tandem duo of geniuses and by the end of the concert they had dragged her to Hermione was inclined to agree. Fred played the violin and George played the cello. When they performed together, it was like they were the same person, their music harmonizing perfectly into each other until it was impossible to separate. The whole thing lasted an hour but Hermione would have sworn she had only been sitting there for a few minutes. When the audience rose in thunderous applause she found herself standing as well, eyes wide as she clapped her hands together and whistled loudly until Fred sent her a saucy wink. The twins had snuck up behind her in the lobby afterward, gathering her up into a dual hug that lit envious fires in her classmates' eyes until she introduced them. Very quickly they were whisked away by a few girls and she didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about throwing them into the clutches of the ballerinas.

"You wouldn't have." Ron smiled before leaning down to stage whisper. "They dropped out."

"WHAT?!" Hermione's piercing screech had both boys covering their ears.

"Man, Hermione, they should record that and use it in riot control," Harry remarked, rubbing the side of his head and laughing.

"What do you mean they dropped out?" Hermione ground out.

"Exactly what I said. Apparently, Fred has decided that they needed to focus on their band and school was just getting in the way."

"What?!"

Hermione had, of course, heard their band. Every 'it' party would book 'The Last Laugh' if they wanted a shot at the party of the year. The band also frequented bars around New York on the weekends, sometimes planned, sometimes not. Either way, the venue ended up packed by the time they were halfway through the set. It was totally normal for any of the students to have side projects to work on, even if they weren't conventional. But to drop Julliard for a punk band was just… just…

"Are they insane?!"

"Molly thinks so." Harry shrugged. "But you know they are good."

"Of course they are good, great even. But great is not enough to get you by in the world of music. They could have kept it up on the side. Did Lee or Angelina drop?"

"Nope, just the twins."

"Ridiculous," she muttered. If there was anything she hated more than a waste of talent it was an unnecessary waste of talent.

"I say, live and let live," Ron remarked, grabbing a muffin off of the rack.

"Of course you do. You gave up singing when you were fourteen."

"Way too much effort in my opinion. Good on them." Ron glanced at his watch. "We have to get going though. Lounged around enough for one afternoon. We've got at least three 'suspicious character' reports from lonely little old ladies to address and we don't want to keep them waiting."

"Got to put in our time, Ron." Harry smiled at Hermione before shouting at the back. "Tonk's, we're taking a latte and a Muffin."

"I'll put it on Sirius's tab!" came the answering reply.

Both boys bid their goodbyes before exiting the coffee shop. Hermione spent the rest of the day fuming. It was hard enough for scholarship students to be taken seriously in a world of legacy artists. Draco's mother used to dance for the Bolshoi Ballet in Russia where his father was a famous pianist. Lee's father was a famous opera singer and Angelina was a third-generation percussionist.

Having two prodigies coming from a backwater no-name family shook the classical world. Along with Hermione's admission, it had forced the school to change their application process, removing all direct recommendation requirements. And they just wasted it.

She was still grumbling about the news hours later when she got off shift. The sun had set and the air chilled to a frost, but that meant nothing to the New Yorkers who were still scrambling around the neighborhood. Locals stopped on doorsteps and shouted greetings from windows. Very important men in business suits crashed through crowds, heedless of anything but the conversation they were having on a too loud phone. Children played in the streets, scrambling over the ice when cars honked angrily at them. The city was alive, even in the dead of winter.

Hermione heard a low mournful note twist through the frigid city air. She paused, tilting her head to catch the sound better. The tenor trembled against her heart, spurning her forward without even being aware of her feet moving. It wasn't rare to hear music in Grimmauld. Most of the students who attended Juilliard lived in the hidden rent-controlled neighborhood that was the last gift the Potters had given before their death. In the summer after the sun went down, windows opened and the sounds of a jumbled orchestra could be heard drifting through the streets, each building playing their own piece. Every year after graduation the departing Seniors would sit on balconies and fire escapes, playing collective pieces until fingers and voices were too drunk to carry the tune.

But something about this sound was different. She followed the keening hum down familiar city blocks, ducking into back alleyways and onto nearly invisible sidewalks. She recognized the aria as it drifted up and down, lonesome without the voice of its pairing. By the time she jumped a low wall of a garden, it was building to a slow crescendo. She found herself in an overgrown courtyard, staring up at a familiar shock of bright red hair on a third-floor fire escape.

His form was terrible. He was playing sitting down, leaning lazily against the grate with his eyes closed as he swayed to the music. It should have stuttered his performance but if anything it only made the piece more impactful. It was the kind of genius one rarely saw in the structured environment of the school, when he was perfectly at ease and unaware. She leaned against the stone wall and closed her eyes, letting the delicate strings settle over her, picking at her own urge to sway. But this was an opera aria. It was much too slow for ballet.

When the last notes faded away the sounds of the city bleed back into the courtyard, breaking the rare spell that only happened when a musician didn't know they had an audience. She smiled up at him, watching as he lovingly ran his fingers over the bow. After a moment he packed up his case, snapping the latches in place with a click.

When she politely applauded he jumped, the fire escape creaking ominously.

"Brava."

Hermione smiled when his eyes found hers. The icy blue was dramatic against the paleness of his skin even from this distance. An easy smile stretched across his face as he leaned over the grate, case in hand. She really only knew the twins in passing and as a unit. She would see them together at school or at holiday dinners when she couldn't make it home. But she had never really talked or worked with either of them one on one.

"Behold the newly born star. I am undeserving to have such a Doll in the audience. Hello, little Clara.*" She rolled her eyes at his ridiculousness pushing herself off the wall.

"Does that mean I should start calling you Nickalausse*?"

"I have been known to warn others away from the sticky sap that is emotion." he sighed dramatically. "Alas. The women. They flock to me, though I can never love them back."

"We'll survive. I'm sure after one turn with you they find themselves just as equally fooled as Hoffman."

"Jesus, you're vicious!" His smile grew. "What brings you to my lonely courtyard, Hermione?"

"I heard you playing when I left work. You are annoyingly talented."

"Why thank you." He bowed mockingly, the fire escape creaking once more.

"Any reason for the impromptu concert?"

"Locked out," he shrugged. "Stuck here until Lee gets back in a few hours."

"I told you to get a spare key after the last time!"

"Who needs a spare key when you have five roommates. One of them was bound to be home."

"But not this time," she teased.

"No," he laughed. "Not this time."

The sounds of traffic drifted through the courtyard. The sirens and shouts blending into the background noise she had come to filter out of her mind completely. She frowned and crossed her arms.

"Fred, what were you thinking, dropping out like that?"

"Ugh, not you too. I already got the guilt trip from ickle Ronniekins. I don't need it from someone clever enough to hit where it hurts."

"It's a waste," she chided, "and you dragged George into it too."

"And that's where it hurts. Record time Hermione. Well done.." He pulled on his gloves with a scowl. "Why does everyone assume it was all my fault? I'm not my brother's keeper."

"We both know George is the sensible one. He only ever does something outrageous when you push him to."

He groaned and ran his hand through his hair. The brick-red strands glinted in the fading light, reflecting back a wave of copper. It was too long, falling just above his shoulders. If he was still in the school they would have made him cut it for the Spring performances.

"I'm just... burnt out. Don't you ever get sick of dancing the exact same thing that some dead guy wrote hundreds of years ago? Don't you ever want to do something new?"

"A classical ballerina is not a good person to pose that question to." She smiled softly in spite of herself.

"Right." Fred seemed to draw into himself, his face suddenly stony and blank. "Of course you wouldn't get it."

"I do get it," Hermione sighed. "It's all part of the game, Fred. We all exist only because some old rich white guys want us to make pretty sounds and dance in pretty ways for their entertainment. Whether you hate it or not is irrelevant. It's play or starve."

"I'd rather starve than spend the rest of my life eating food that tastes like ash in my mouth."

"And you very well may. You chose this life."

"Well no one told me it would be so boring and I am sick of it." He slammed his hands against the rail. The metal groaned in protest. "I want to make what I want, when I want, about what I want. I'm sick of playing for someone else like a wind-up music box. They can get a fucking record player."

"But you have so much talent-"

"And that talent means nothing without passion. Why can't anyone see that?" He stared down at her meaningfully. "Can you just drop it? I have had this conversation no less than three times today and I am so over it."

She bit back the urge to chastise him in the face of his pained fury. He was lashing out, but it wasn't fair for her to pick at him when he had already made a decision. She sighed and shook her head.

"I suppose I hardly know you well enough to lecture."

"Since when has that ever stopped you?"

Hermione couldn't help the giggle that slipped from her throat. Fred smiled in response. After a moment she let her features soften as she looked up.

"So… all in on The Last Laugh."

"The only way to be."

She sighed dramatically.

"I suppose you'll have to let me know when you're playing. I'll try to make it to whatever I can."

"I always knew you were a true fan," he responded with a cheeky wink.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Well, want to come hang at my place until Lee gets back? It's only a few blocks from here and your mother will kill me if I let you get frostbite."

"I don't suppose you have food?" he questioned hopefully.

"Ramen and tomato soup."

"Beef?" Fred seemed hopeful at the thought.

"Chicken is far superior," she scoffed.

"And I thought you were smart."

They bickered as he slid down the grates, rust raining down from metal. By the time his feet landed on the pavement she released a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"That thing is a death trap."

"This is New York. Everything is a deathtrap. Have you ever eaten at Louie's Pizza?"

"No. I like my stomach exactly where it is. Inside of me." Hermione responded with a grimace.

"Exactly. Deathtrap. I hope your place has fewer cockroaches than Louie's."

She laughed in spite of herself as they set off toward her apartment. The first few flakes had just started to fall as they exited the courtyard.

Notes in the order they appear int he fic

Donkeys milk latte: actually a very VERY good milk to use for lattes. It has a higher fat content than whole and and makes for a smoother flavor... but also more calories. It does taste a bit raw compared to your standard supermarket brand.

Ballet Mistress: a person in a ballet company whose duty is to give a daily company ballet class and rehearse ballets that the dancers will perform. Hermione is in a class not a company but the Headmistress/ Dance mistress was too good to pass up.

Juilliard: A highly respected school for the preforming arts in NYC. Very difficult and expensive to get into.

Doll/Clara: The lead female of the Nutcracker. Depending on rendition Clara is either a child who falls into the weird Christmas magic world or turns into her doll and does the same.

Nickalausse: The aria Fred was playing. One of the most well-known violin arias it is actually part of the opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann, telling the story of a poet's failed love affair. In this bit Fred is referencing Nickalausse, an aria in which Hoffmann falls in love with a dancing autonomaton and his friend (Nickalausse) tries to warn him. He doesn't listen and ends up fooled and heart broken that she cannot love him back.

The chapter title is the opening line from one of Disney's dark movies: Oliver and Company.