Hermione was woken up by a faint tapping sound coming from the window. It took her a few seconds to realise that she was in Ginny's old bedroom at the Burrow and not in her own flat. She had been helping Mr. and Mrs. Weasley out all day preparing for their big anniversary party the day after tomorrow. Exhausted, she had gone to bed early and had already managed to get a couple of hours of sleep.

Once more, there was a tap coming from the window and Hermione's eyes grew wide with horror as she realised that someone must've crawled up to the roof to watch her sleep. Immediately, she searched for her wand under her pillow as a third tap came from the window. Lying on her side and with her back to the window, she was ready to hex whoever was about to break in but suddenly realised that the tapping sound was accompanied by a familiar voice calling her name from the outside. She turned around, now facing the window, and saw Fred waving at her with a lopsided grin. She let out a heavy sigh and tried to control her pulse as she went over to the window and let him inside. Of course it was Fred.

"What are you doing here?" Hermione hissed as he crawled in through the small window, "I was sleeping!"

"Thought it would be fun to surprise you," Fred snickered and Hermione realised that he was drunk. His eyes were red-rimmed, his hair was a mess, and he could barely stand on his own two feet.

"Well, you certainly surprised me! I thought you were a death eater."

"Sorry love," Fred snickered once more, slowly tilting sideways.

"What have you been up to?" Hermione laughed as she helped him stand up straight.

"I've been at dinner," he slurred.

"With whom?"

"Valerie," Fred said and Hermione could feel the jealousy form a pit in her stomach, "she pulled out a very lovely oaky firewhisky that I had to try several times."

"Mmh..." Hermione brummed, "sounds like you've had a lovely evening then."

"Yeah, she's quite sweet - she reminds me of you sometimes," he smiled proudly at Hermione, "hey - I should introduce you!"

Hermione chose to ignore him, "Fred, what are you doing here at this hour?" she interrupted him with a sigh.

"Well, I was about to apparate home when I remembered that you were at the Burrow and that you have been here all day. Naturally, I had to come see you, didn't I?" He smiled at her.

"Did you really?" Hermione raised an eyebrow at him.

"Sorry love - I honestly just wanted to scare you senseless... I'll be out of your hair now."

"Great," Hermione said, "we have a tonne of work to do tomorrow."

Fred groaned, "Could you be a dear and go fix me a glass of water before I leave?" He looked at her with huge puppy eyes.

Hermione eyed him suspiciously. His choice of vocabulary told her that he had something planned.

"I have a bad case of cotton-mouth," he said innocently, "and it would help with the hangovers tomorrow. You wouldn't want me to be hungover would you?"

With a sigh, Hermione gave him the benefit of the doubt and snuck downstairs to the kitchen to fix Fred a glass of water.

As she returned upstairs again, Fred had placed himself on top of her bed, fully dressed, and already half-asleep.

"Get up, Weasley. I'm not sharing my bed with you."

He mumbled something intelligible and Hermione could tell that he was in absolutely no condition to move. She let out a heavy sigh as she realised that she had already lost this battle. "Alright then... Scoot over," she mumbled and he made room for her on the bed while accepting the glass of water that she was offering him.

He smiled, took a big gulp of water, and said, "I knew I could convince you to let me stay!"

Forcefully, Hermione managed to pull off his boots before she crawled under the covers next to him. She closed her eyes, trying to go back to sleep. Beside her, Fred was reeking of firewhisky but she didn't mind. It was a scent that always reminded her of Fred and George.

"Mum's really going to be pissed..." Fred mumbled after a couple of seconds of comfortable silence.

"Why?" Hermione sighed, annoyed that he wouldn't let her go back to sleep.

"I promised I wouldn't drink tonight but I did it anyway..."

"You drink too much," Hermione looked at him, "I'm starting to worry about you."

"Oi sod off, Granger," Fred blew a raspberry, "I drink the perfect amount for someone that's heartbroken."

"You're heartbroken?" Hermione's eyes flew open to study Fred's facial expression. He had his eyes closed and he was running his tongue all over the front of his teeth. Had he already fallen for the girl he had been on a couple of dates with? The thought alone made a lump in Hermione's throat appear. She decided, however, that now was a good time to show Fred that they were still good friends even though hearing about the girl who had broken his heart would surely break her own. She decided that their friendship should come before anything else. "We can talk about it if you want to," she whimpered.

Fred, however, didn't seem to hear Hermione and continued, "Hey, remember last time we were both lying here?"

Hermione groaned and buried her face in her pillow, "I'd rather not."

Fred opened his eyes, and even though he was drunk, Hermione could still see the confusion written across his face, "why not? Because of what happened or because of the aftermath?" He asked.

"A little bit of both I guess," Hermione whispered.

"Are you still embarrassed?"

"Are you?"

Fred looked at her with huge eyes, "I never was."

"Me neither. Not really. Everything was just... different after."

"It was."

"I really regret it."

He furrowed his brows, "You do?"

Hermione nodded, "yes - don't you?"

His eyes were intense, "I don't know. I regret how everything was handled but why would I ever regret being with you?"

Hermione didn't know what to answer to that so she just looked at him.

"I've thought about you a lot over the past years..." he then said, "I always imagined that no matter how angry with me you were, you still asked my family about me. I imagined that you'd hear from George how miserable I've been and that you'd realise that I still thought about you. But I never heard from you."

"You waited for me to contact you?"

"Yeah, I guess. Even though I knew you never would. Not before I apologised."

"I don't understand why you didn't just apologise. I mean... if you really were that miserable why didn't you just come back?" Hermione sighed.

Fred went completely silent before he finally spoke, "someday, I'll tell you..."

Neither of them knew what to say and as a result, they didn't speak for a while. Hermione was busy racking her brain for anything to say to him but suddenly noticed that Fred's breathing had slowed down dramatically. Hermione closed her eyes too and tried to empty her head of all thoughts which proved to be much harder than she had imagined it to be.

Just before she drifted off she heard Fred mumble, "you look really nice. You look nice even in your pyjamas and without make up."

"Thanks, Fred," Hermione chuckled, "what makes you say that all of a sudden?"

"I dunno," Fred shrugged, "George thinks I'm in love with you."