JAMES PHELPS TWEETED ME BACK ON THANKSGIVING! It made my day. The message wasn't even anything of much significance, but seeing an email in my inbox saying "James Phelps replied to one of your tweets!" was a nice little surprise. Win win win.

Hermione awoke with a shriek the next morning when something flopped onto the bed beside her. She opened her eyes to find George laying entirely too close to her on his stomach, his chin in his hands, and his face inches from hers. "George Weasley! Was that really necessary?"

He grinned at her before slipping an angelic expression onto his face and replying. "Of course it was, Granger. I need to shower, and I wanted to make sure you were awake so you could avoid accidentally seeing me in my towel. Unless you'd like to ogle me, of course, in which case I retract my previous statement - ogle away!"

Hermione laughed and lightly slapped George's arm. "You're the limit, George Weasley."

He gave her a bright smile. "In retrospect, I suppose I didn't have to wake you - I could just bring my clean clothes into the bathroom with me and get dressed in there. I enjoyed waking you up like that too much, though, to really care either way." Getting up off the bed before she could react to his cheek, he went about collecting his clothes and made his way into the shared bathroom connecting his and Fred's rooms. A minute or so later, Hermione could hear him belting out a terribly off-key rendition of a song by the Weird Sisters, and she chuckled to herself. 'That boy...'

Fred chose that moment to stroll into George's room, clad in just a towel. "Morning, Granger!"

She turned to look at him in the doorway and shrieked again, hiding her face under the sheets. "FRED! PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!"

He grinned impishly and sauntered over to her, sitting down on the edge of the bed and leaning over her huddled form from above the blanket. "That's totally unnecessary, Miss Granger. I know you want to see my hot bod, no need denying it. I'm just that irresistible."

"If there's anything irresistible around here, it's my desire to smack that silly grin off your face. Now please, go get dressed so I can escape this bed! I'll make you breakfast if you do..."

"Pancakes?" Fred asked.

Hermione nodded the best she could from under the covers. "Sure, pancakes."

"PANCAKES!" Fred shouted, jumping off the bed and bolting from the room. Hermione chuckled and got up from the bed, making it neatly before padding into the flat's kitchen for the first time. She took a look through the cabinets before determining that yes, she did have the necessary ingredients for pancakes, and set about mixing the batter. Fred walked back into the kitchen - fully dressed this time - and peeked over her shoulder. He squealed, gave Hermione a big, sloppy, wet kiss on the cheek, and then ran into George's room.

"GEORGE! GET OUT HERE! HERMIONE'S MAKING PANCAKES!"

"PANCAKES!" she heard him shout in reply, and within seconds, both boys were sitting at the table with eager expressions on their faces. "I knew having you stay here was a good idea, Hermione. Pancakes on your first day here? I can't imagine it getting much better than this."

She turned her back to the boys and smiled secretly, under the pretense of adding another ingredient. She could get used to living with them if they were this lively and appreciative all the time.

-oOo-

'Merlin, those were delicious pancakes, Hermione!" Fred exclaimed, standing up and stretching towards the ceiling. "As thanks for making me such a fantastic breakfast, I'm going to pop on over to the Burrow and get you some necessities. Anything in particular you'd like?"

She gave him a grateful smile. "If you could bring my trunk, that would be fantastic. There's a few things in there that would be useful to have, and I can easily hide it in my safe room. Other than that and clothes, I suppose just a toothbrush will do. I can transfigure pretty much anything else, I think. Thank you."

"No problem, Granger. I'll be back in a little while...hopefully, just long enough for George to do the dishes without me." And with a cheeky wink at his two flatmates, he disappeared with a loud crack to the Burrow.

"Ugh. I hate doing the dishes! I guess that's what I get for volunteering Fred to get your stuff last night," George proclaimed.

"I'll help you, I don't mind. That way, we can start on transfiguring some furniture for my safe room sooner rather than later," Hermione replied. George just nodded, and they set about cleaning up from breakfast.

Fifteen minutes or so later, just as they were heading into George's room to find things to transfigure, Fred returned with Hermione's trunk. He met them in George's room, stashing the trunk in the safe room and scouring George's desk with them. They came up with a few spare bits of parchment and some old, broken quills, and George set to expanding the entrance to the safe room. Once the door was sufficiently tall enough for both Hermione and the twins to enter it easily, he cast the counter-spell for Homenum Revelio around the closet and stepped into Hermione's new room, with the others close behind.

Hermione sat down on her trunk as George transfigured one of the pieces of quill into a bed frame, while Fred was busy changing a piece of parchment into a mattress. "It's not anything too fancy," George said, indicating to the newly-put-together bed, "but I'm sure it'll do." Hermione nodded, and they each set to transfiguring one more piece of furniture. Fred made a mirror, Hermione made an end table, and George made a dresser. Once they had arranged the furniture to Hermione's liking, Fred pulled out two more pieces of parchment.

"Thought you might like to have this," he said, and changed one piece into a desk, quickly following it up with a chair as well.

Hermione grinned broadly, and hugged him. "Thanks, Fred, that was very thoughtful of you. And thank you as well, George," she continued, moving over to hug him. "Not just for helping me set up my room, but for allowing me to invade the privacy of your bedroom with my little nook."

The boys both nodded their welcome, and the three headed back into the kitchen to make some lunch.

-oOo-

A week later, and Hermione was practically clawing her eyes out from boredom. "Freeeeed," she whined from her position lounging on his bed, putting her book down, "I'm SO BORED!"

"Run out of books to read, Granger?" George asked as he ambled into the room. She scowled at him, and he just laughed in response.

"Help us invent," Fred said quickly.

"Do what?"

"Help us with development! You're brilliant, I'm sure you could help us solve numerous issues and come up with a few ideas on your own," he replied.

Hermione seemed to think on this for a moment, and then got a wicked gleam in her eyes. "Okay, under one condition - we send Ginny the best finished product I've helped with, by Halloween, for her to prank Filch."

George dropped his sandwich, and Fred's face broke out in a surprised 'o'. "Who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger?" he asked.

She just giggled in response, and stuck out her hand. "Deal?"

Both boys' faces immediately lit up, and they shook her hand one after the other with a declaration of "deal!" together.

"So what's first?"

George scrambled into the development lab to grab some blueprints as Fred started listing off the things they were working on. "Crawling Chocolates," George announced as he ran back into the room. "That's what you should help us with first."

Fred nodded. "They're intended to make you crawl on the ceiling, and we want them to last for about 15 minutes. We've got the taste down, and the crawling, but we can't seem to put a time limit on them."

Hermione took the blueprint from George's outstretched hand and looked it over quickly. "Hrmm. I think I can figure this out. I'll be in my room if you need me." She smiled at the boys and walked away, frowning at the blueprint as she made her way to the desk in her safe room.

"Forge, you're brilliant. I can't wait to see what she does with this one, we could come up with so many awesome products with her brain included into the mix!"

"I agree, Gred. The possibilities are endless now, I look forward to seeing -"

"BOYS!" Hermione shouted, interrupting Fred's sentence. "Come see what I've done!"

The twins looked at each other in surprise and confusion, and then practically ran into George's room to see what she was yelling about. "What is it, Granger?" Fred asked.

"I do believe I've figured it out. You just made one miscalculation, if I'm not mistaken. Care to accompany me to the lab to test it out?"

The boys eagerly turned around and bolted towards the lab, Hermione laughing as she walked behind them. They reached the lab, and the twins started pulling out the necessary ingredients for her to work with. "There, that should do it," she announced, finishing her wandwork. "Who's testing it?"

"Fred's turn," George stated. "I did the dishes."

Fred groaned, but stuck his hand out for Hermione to place the candy in. Popping it into his mouth, he stood still and savoured the taste for a moment until he suddenly flew up to the ceiling, flipping over in the process. "Start the timer, George!" he shouted down, and started walking along the ceiling. Exactly fifteen minutes later, he fell back down to the floor. "You did it!"

"I could kiss you, Granger," George declared. "You'll never be bored in this flat again, as long as we have ideas for you to help us with."

Hermione just smiled, her stomach flopping strangely at George's declaration.

Posted: November 2011
Word Count: 1,646