November 1998

Hermione had had a horrible day. Her boss had found owl-droppings on a very important document that had been lying on Hermione's desk, he had yelled at her in front of all her colleagues, and while being yelled at, Hermione had managed to spill coffee all down the front of her favourite blouse. All-in-all a horrible, horrible day that Hermione couldn't wait for to end. Looking at the clock on her desk, she counted the minutes until 5 pm were she was finally let off the hook. When the hand of the clock finally landed in the right position, Hermione sprang from her chair and half-ran towards the entrance hall with the Ministry's many fireplaces. Within a couple of minutes, she had flooed home, eager to have a quiet night in with Crookshanks.

"Crooks?" she called out for her cat as she stepped out of her bedroom-fireplace and dusted off her clothes. She looked around the room. Normally, Crookshanks would wait for her in the rocking chair in the corner of the bedroom, but today he was nowhere to be seen. "Crooks?" she tried again, but the cat still didn't come.

"Weird," Hermione muttered before she froze - A couple of hushed male voices were coming from the living room.

After having been on the run for about a year, Hermione was used to defend herself within a moments notice; immediately she clutched her wand, prepared to hex the intruders into oblivion. She listened intently for their voices, ready to strike as soon as she had located their exact whereabouts in the small room next door.

"Get it off me!" a strained voice rang.

"I can't! It's bloody stuck, isn't it?" the second male said in an equally strained voice.

"I don't care if you have to hex it, just get it the hell away from me! I hate cats!"

"Yes, because I'm so fond of them," the second voice rang with sarcasm, "can't you just wiggle around and it will release itself?"

"It's got it's bloody claws in me, doesn't it? I swear, I'm going to murder this little git! AH FUCK! It's got its teeth in me too!"

"Stop that! You're hurting the poor creature!"

"I thought you hated it too!"

"Hermione's fond of it, mate - Hey! Stop!"

Hermione gave out a sigh and stepped out from her hiding place and in to the living room where she was met by two familiar redheads. They were standing in the middle of the room, trying to heave Crookshanks away from Fred's chest. Fred was yelping dramatically while George's face had turned completely red from the struggle with the cat.

Hermione cleared her throat, causing Fred and George to whip around and face her with equally innocent smiles. "Surprise!" they said in unison. Fred's voice now a little more strained than George's.

"Let go, Crooks," Hermione said and the cat immediately retracted its teeth and claws from Fred's skin and fell to the floor with a great thud.

"What a sweet cat you've got there," Fred lied unconvincingly, examining the holes in his jumper.

"Don't bother," Hermione brushed off his compliment, "he probably attacked you because he thought you were intruders. He's very protective of me," she looked lovingly down at the orange cat who was snuggling against her legs.

"Charming," Fred said in a sour tone.

"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked them.

"Percy told us about your day," George said carefully, "we wanted to see if you needed cheering up."

Hermione really wanted to be alone, and for a moment she cursed Percy for having told Fred and George about her horrible day. Although, the three of them had become very good friends in the past couple of months, she had really hoped for a quiet night alone. She knew, however, that Fred and George had shown up because they were great friends who sincerely wanted to make her feel better. Hermione gave out a great sigh and forced a smile, "that's really sweet of you. Thanks guys..."

"It was Fred's idea!" George said and gestured to his twin.

Still not being completely used to thinking about anybody else apart from himself and his twin brother, Fred looked awfully proud of himself.

"I appreciate it," Hermione said sincerely to the both of them.

"- And we brought pies!" Fred exclaimed and pointed to Hermione's dinner table where three steaming pies were sitting.

"Comfort food - You guys are the best," Hermione said as she sat down in front of one of the pies, "I've had the worst day," she shuddered, embarrassed by herself.

"Ah, come off it, love" Fred winked at her, "it can't possibly have been that bad."

"I can't believe the news of it spread to Percy's department," Hermione groaned.

"He's a pompous ass, Hermione!" George laughed, "I'm sure he snooped around to get the news; he loves when people he consider competition are failing at something."

"Remind me again why he wasn't put in Slytherin?" Fred joked.

"Well, snooping or no snooping, I'm really glad that he found out. Otherwise you guys wouldn't be here to cheer me up."

George sent her a beaming smile but Fred had suddenly become very interested in something that was happening near his feet, "Oi! Sod off!" he said and tried to move his feet around to get Crookshanks away from him.

"Crookshanks!" Hermione said sternly, "not while we're eating."

The cat ignored her and instead jumped onto Fred's lap.

"Hermione!" Fred whimpered, "get it away from me!"

"Bad Crooks!" Hermione said but the cat just sent her a defiant look before it laid itself down in Fred's lap and started purring, snuggling up against him.

Fred sent Hermione yet another whimper, looking at her with pleading eyes.

"I've... I've never seen him act like this before..." Hermione eyed the purring cat in Fred's lap with great interest, "Well, he does it with me, but never with anybody else."

"I feel so special," Fred said through gritted teeth, "- now get it off of me!"

Hermione went around the table and easily picked up the cat who fought desperately to stay in Fred's lap.

That night, after the twins had hugged Hermione goodnight and she was lying alone in bed with Crookshanks purring on her lap, she wondered exactly what had gotten into her cat. At first she had thought that the cat had attacked Fred because it had thought of him as an intruder but suddenly she realised that the cat hadn't attacked him at all. Crookshanks had actually clawed its way to Fred's chest because it had liked him. Being half-kneazle, a species known for being both psychic and very protective of their owners, Crookshanks had immediately seen something in Fred that it wanted to show Herrmione - only Hermione didn't understand what.