Chapter 8: Fredrick
The next morning, Hermione caught sight of her rubber ducky on the edge of her tub and laughed, but her thoughts instantly turned to George and their discussion the previous day. He'll need a sample rubber ducky, you know, a prototype of sorts. She picked up her duck and stood for a moment in indecision before giving the ducky a squeeze.
That noise caused her to grin again and cemented her plans in her mind. She turned and finished getting ready to go, ducky in hand. Not twenty minutes later she was apparating to Diagon Alley. After all, she thought logically, George needed to have an example of a real rubber ducky if they were going to go forward with this product.
"Maybe I can owl her," George said quietly.
Fred glanced up from the product he was working on, barely hiding his smile. "Maybe you can owl who?" he asked innocently, although he already knew the answer.
"What?" George asked, unaware that he'd spoken out loud.
Fred did grin at him this time. "You're not thinking of the lovely Ms. Hunter, are you, brother mine?"
George felt his face heat slightly. "We're just friends, mate."
Fred would have replied, but the figurine of a frog on the desk next to him came to life and started singing Frank Sinatra songs and prancing around the table. The frog had been a gift from one of their buyers in America and served as an alert that someone had entered the shop.
"I'll go," George offered, and disappeared out the door a second later. "Hello. Welcome to—" When he saw who it was, he stopped and stared for a second. Hermione was standing just inside the door wearing a flowing white skirt that stopped just below the knees and a blue halter top. She looked beautiful.
She grinned when she saw him. "Hey, Sparky. Just the person I wanted to see."
Her greeting snapped him out of it and he realized he'd been staring. "Hi, Hermione. What brings you in today?"
She pulled a small white box with a neon green ribbon on it out from behind her back and offered it to him. "I want to give you this. I decided you needed it for reference."
He opened the box without comment and what could only be the rubber ducky that she'd described so much in depth the day before slid out onto his hand. He laughed. It was exactly as she had said.
"Thank you."
She grinned again and his breath caught in his throat. "Not a problem. I know you'll take good care of Fredrick for me."
He looked at her, momentarily nonplussed. "Fredrick?"
She nodded. "All duckies are named Fredrick," she stated matter-of-factly.
"What about the girl ducks?"
"Lola," she responded without hesitation.
George shouted with laughter at her response. Hermione's eyes sparkled with laughter before she let out a little giggle. "Come on, Sparky. I want to get started on my invention."
"Your invention?" George cried in mock outrage.
She laughed again and said, "Come on, I'll race you to the lab." And with that, she was off like a shot.
George watched her retreating back for the space of half a second before he took off after her in hot pursuit. This was going to be a fun day.
Twenty minutes later, Hermione rolled her wand between her fingers with one hand while tapping on her chin with the other. "We need some inspiration. Fredrick just isn't enough."
"What would you suggest?" George asked, plainly curious.
More tapping. Then she snapped her fingers. "Got it! Accio purse!" Hermione's purse flew across the room into her waiting hands. "Okay, now where is it?"
She pulled out a set of keys with a Winnie the Pooh keychain on it and set it on the desk. Next was a small pen-sized flashlight. Then a small hand mirror was added to the pile. Digging deeper still, Hermione pulled out a wallet, lipstick, a nail file, breath mints, tissues, two toothbrushes, mouthwash, gum, a camera, three large bars of Honeydukes chocolate, a thick dictionary and a thesaurus, a lighter, a pen knife, a huge book of poetry, a hairdryer, a laptop, four complete changes of clothing, a desk lamp, a violin, a stack of sheet music and a music stand.
Finally, "Aha!" Hermione pulled out a small, flat blue object followed by two speakers and waved them in triumph.
George's eyes, which had grown to the size of dinner plates as the mountain of objects on the desk grew, now became confused. "What is it?"
"It's my MP-3 player. It plays music." She fiddled with the speakers and hooked everything up. "I know a song that might give us some inspiration."
She pushed play on the music player and sent everything back into her purse with a wave of her wand. Strains of "Rubber ducky, you're the one…" filled the room as George just shook his head. It had taken her over twenty minutes to find what she wanted in her purse and less than a millisecond to send it all back inside. Things where Hermione was concerned were never boring.