Good Friends, Bad Habits
Chapter Two: Courting
If Hermione had been any less distracted by the mass of papers in her hands, she might have noticed the two tall redheads leaning against the door of the courtroom. As it was, she was quite engrossed in her reading, so when she reached out to grab the door handle but ended up instead with a fistful of cotton it took her a moment to realize something was wrong.
"I've never been one to turn down a pretty witch trying to yank my clothes off," Fred said slowly, staring pointedly down at Hermione's hand where it was clutching the front of his blue button-up shirt, "but I've got to say, this is hardly the time for that sort of thing, Hermione. George and I are in a spot of trouble."
"As usual," his twin added, grinning at the very befuddled-looking Hermione.
She blushed crimson as the two winked cheekily at her, and it took her a moment to realize she was still trying to use Fred's shirt as a doorknob. "W-w-what are you two doing here?" she sputtered, tearing her hand away from the blue fabric as if it had burned her(which, knowing the twins, wasn't an entirely impossible occurrence).
George rolled his eyes, pulling his hearing notice out of his back pocket. With a look of irritation that Hermione wasn't used to seeing from the twins, he shoved the notice into her hands, knocking her own papers to the ground.
"Ministry jackarses being Ministry jackarses," he explained, rolling his eyes.
Hermione hadn't spared a glance for his notice, instead dropping to the floor with a cry as she attempted to get her papers back in order.
The twins watched her fumble about on the stone floor for a moment before one of them finally took pity on her.
"Honestly," Fred grumbled, pulling his wand out of his pocket and flicking it casually. "Brightest witch of the age, they called her. Smarter than Dumbledore himself, they said." Her papers flew up off the floor and rearranged themselves neatly in midair, while Hermione remained kneeling on the floor, her hands still held out as if reaching for the scattered documents.
George took the papers, blowing the dust off with a quick puff of air. "So I assume you'll be on the jury or the trial team or some nonsense?" he asked, watching with a bemused expression as Hermione remained in her kneeling position on the floor.
"Yeah," Fred added, "aren't you like the Supreme Overlord of the Law or something by now?"
The little joke had the unexpected effect of causing the usually levelheaded witch to burst into tears and crumple into a sobbing mass on the floor between the twins. Fred and George stared at each other in wide-eyed shock, looking as if they were either about to run away or start crying as well, just to have something to do. After a quick mental conference, they dropped onto their haunches on either side of the bawling witch, patting her soothingly, if a bit awkwardly, on the back.
"There, there," George attempted to pacify her, "it's alright if you're only Vice Overlord at this point. You've only been here a month."
Instead of calming Hermione, she cried harder- a feat which, only seconds ago, the twins would have thought impossible.
Fred shot George a bewildered look before he gave it a go as well. "Listen, Hermione, we know you'll feel bad about having to find us guilty of our charges, but on the bright side at least we probably are guilty, so there's no need to get worked up about it."
Something in Hermione's stack of papers caught George's eye at that moment, and in a flash he understood, partially the problem.
"Oi, what the bloody hell is this?" he demanded, pulling out an all-too-familiar notice from the pile of parchment. "Hermione, you've written this wrong! It's as if you're the one…who's…on trial…" he trailed off, jaw agape as he blinked down at the letter.
Fred snatched it away from him, scanning the familiar lines as his face grew more and more mystified.
"You've-Hermione, you've broken the law!" he crowed, bouncing up off the floor and holding the paper at arms length. Where he had once looked at it with contempt, he now stared at it as a father would look at his firstborn son. George was gazing up at it with similar awe, not even noticing that Hermione's stifled sobs had ended.
In the blink of an eye, she was off the floor, snatching the notice out of Fred's hands and wiping her eyes angrily on the sleeve of her robe.
"Yes, that's right! I've broken the bloody law and now I'm probably going to lose my job over it, so there, I hope you're happy!" she snapped, her face furious as she took out her wand and summoned her other papers from where they sat forgotten in George's lap.
The twins rolled their eyes in unison, Fred crossing his arms over his chest. "Now don't get snippy with us, we're not the ones who-" he paused, frowning slightly.
George was frowning as well, staring at Hermione very hard as if seeing her for the first time. "What exactly did you do anyway?" he asked. "I didn't read that part of the notice."
Hermione's face turned the color of the twins' hair, and they half-expected her to start crying again. Instead, she whirled away from them so that they could only stare at her back. "It is none of your business," she said evenly.
The twins exchanged a long look that was hard to read, but eventually they both shrugged, and Fred slumped back onto the ground beside his brother.
"This has to be some sort of record, Gred."
"Aye, Forge. In a single hearing, the Ministry has managed to bring down the unbelievably talented and handsome Weasley twins, as well as the one and only Hermione Granger."
"Indeed. We should call the Daily Prophet. They'd have a field day."
Hermione glared over her shoulder at them in a way that reminded both young men so very much of their beloved mother that they immediately fell silent. After a few moments of cool silence, the courtroom doors swung open, beckoning the three to enter.
Hermione very much wanted to die and sink into the cold stones beneath her feet when the committee took their seats at the raised table and blinked down their old, superior noses at her. Mafalda Hopkirk sat in the center, her aged face showing no sign of recognizing her Junior staff member among the three criminals before her. Instead, she was smiling indulgently at the two men on either side of Hermione.
"Well, Mr.'s Weasley, what a pleasure to see you again!" the old witch boomed, leaning forward over the handsomely polished wooden table to get a better look at the twins.
They grinned back at her, Fred answering with utmost sincerity. "You, too, Maffy. Haven't seen you in the shop in ages."
"Thought you'd been put off us," George added, throwing in a wink for good measure.
Hermione stared, amazed and appalled, as her aging boss giggled like a schoolgirl. The other council members (all women, Hermione noted, which was unusual) were smiling as well, all eyes on the twins. As the conversation went on in an entirely unprofessional and flirtatious manner, Hermione began to become a bit frustrated. Were the Weasley twins really that good-looking and likeable that they were just going to waltz out of a criminal charge with a few well-placed winks and cheeky grins?
As it turned out, yes. That was exactly what happened.
"Oh, you dears!" Mafalda crooned, pulling her large peacock feather quill toward her along with two papers that were obviously the Weasleys' sentence sheets. "I know you must be dreadfully busy with that marvelous store of yours! And of course, you were only experimenting with more of your wonderful creations when the trespass occurred, I'm sure."
"Quite right," the twins chorused sweetly. George went on to explain. "We've been testing out some particularly potent aphrodisiacs for our Wonder Witch products and, well-" he gave a sheepish grin that anyone who wasn't familiar with the him would have thought was completely sincere.
"You know how things can get a bit out of hand," Fred finished, tossing yet another wink to the wrinkly old bat. Hermione frowned at herself- since when had she begun to call her boss a wrinkly old bat?
"We all get out of hand now and then, and the two of you are surely quite passionate," Mafalda continued, winking suggestively. Hermione's stomach churned with disgust and fury at the unfairness of it all. "By law, I have to give you some sort of sentence, so I'll just mandate that you attend a week-long class on magical control, dears."
The twins grinned at her. "Thanks, Maffy. Sounds a bit too educational for our tastes, but we'll take it."
"As for you," Mafalda said, her honeyed voice dropping to its normal business-like tone as she looked for the first time at Hermione. "It's a first offense of the simplest degree- failure to control magical actions while reaching an orgasm. As it's a first offense, there will be no jail time. You are required to pay a fee of one hundred Galleons. Also, for good measure, you will be required to attend the aforementioned control class. As your duties as Junior Officer are quite important, you will be expected to take the noon class during your lunch break while still completing all of your assigned tasks. That is all." With a final benevolent smile at the Weasleys, Mafalda banged her gavel and Hermione stood in numb disbelief as the assembled court dispersed.
On either side of her, the twins had similar expressions of incredulity as they stared down at the frazzled witch between them. Finally coming to herself and sensing the twins' awed gazes, Hermione realized that Mafalda had revealed to the two jokesters that she, Hermione Granger, had…well…had. Cheeks burning like fire, she rushed from the court room before they could say a word.
Once she was safe in her office, Hermione finally let out the breath she had been holding since meeting the Weasley twins outside of the courtroom. The truth was Hermione nearly had a heart attack when she saw the twins leaning against the doorway, terrified that, somehow, the Ministry had accessed her thoughts while she had been having her orgasm and brought the twins into the courtroom as a sort of witness. It had, after all, been them she'd been thinking about when she'd lost control.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews/favs! Should mention that the title of this story comes from the song "Good Friends, Bad Habits" by Owen. Great song!
