When Hermione awoke, everything was precisely the same as it had been the previous morning, the light falling the same way through her window, illuminating millions of dust motes drifting through the air. Still, something had shifted to accommodate the knowledge that Fred loved her, and the air felt charged with energy like static electricity, pregnant with new possibility. She could hear voices and bustle from the shop drifting up through the floor, which meant that she had overslept, but she knew that Fred and George could handle the morning crowd without her. She stumbled to the bathroom, brushed her teeth (she still did it the muggle way, even after all these years - she was the daughter of two dentists after all) and then made her way into the kitchen for breakfast.
She had made tea and toast, eaten, washed all her dishes, and had begun plucking the lint from her jumper before she realized what she was doing. She recalled the distinct image her of fist, poised to knock on the rough wood of a certain front door. As before, she shook herself and plunged ahead before the seed of doubt had long enough to grow. She pushed the door to the shop open and the sound washed over her like a wave.
The shop was busy, but it wouldn't be truly packed until the end of term, which was just over a month and a half away, when all the students would come rushing in to stuff their schoolbags full of treats and tricks to last them through the summer. With a start, Hermione realized that it must be nearing the anniversary, almost a year. She looked to Fred, who was chatting with a young group of witches, trying to sell them a handful of Daydream Charms, and a few of them were weighing their money in their hands, almost sold. She could remember his cold, pale face, smeared with blood, as clear as if it had happened yesterday.
As soon as the gaggle of girls made their purchases, she swept up to him, catching a handful of his maroon jumper in her fist and dragging him up to the flat. George sent her an annoyingly knowing glance as she brushed past. However, once she got him up to the landing, door shut safely behind her, she found she didn't know quite what to do.
"Is everything alright 'Mione? You're looking a little, uh, peaked," he asked, his expression battling between amused and concerned.
"No, er I mean yes." What precisely did one say to the person that they had quite recently realized that they were in love with? Oh yes Fred you see I've only just realized that our souls have been tied inextricably together by forces beyond human comprehension and I find I'm dead chuffed by the whole idea.
Hermione Granger had long respected the power of words, but here they utterly failed her. Rather than say anything at all, she fisted her hands in the collar of his shirt and pulled his lips down to crash against hers. The surge of energy that seared across her skin almost distracted her from the way he tilted his head to slot his mouth against hers, the way his big hands pressed heat across the small of her back where he held her flush against his body. Her tongue pressed past the seam of his mouth, to lick into the heat of it, tasting the Butterbeer he had been sipping while he worked. The appreciative noise that growled out of the back of his throat sent an electric thrill through her, and she stretched on her toes to press closer, hands moving to his fiery red hair.
He kissed her back in earnest then, tracing her teeth with his tongue, one hand moving to the nape of her neck. He nibbled on her lower lip which earned him an appreciative noise from the small witch held in his arms, and he squeezed her tight in response. Suddenly Hermione couldn't stop smiling, even when it made her teeth clack against Fred's, and she could feel his own grin as he pressed his lips against hers. She pulled back, and he rested his forehead against hers, his breath ghosting over her kiss-swollen lips. She felt an incandescent happiness bubbling up in her chest and it spilled over her lips as laughter. Fred smiled at her, and pulled back to look at her face, his pupils still blown wide, his irises a bright ring of blue.
"I reckon we better tell George."
"I reckon," she said with a grin, "he already knows." She felt, rather than heard, George's laughter, his gladness echoing through the both of them, and then the door to his mind firmly closing, leaving her alone with Fred. "That's a good trick, you'll have to teach me some time." He laughed, and pressed a quick kiss to her lips with a familiar ease that warmed her all the way to her toes.
"We've had a lot more practice with carving out some privacy every once in a while. It's only common courtesy when a lad might be getting his leg over." Hermione's mouth opened in a gasp.
"Frederick Gideon Weasley, were you under the impression that you would be 'getting your leg over'? What a vile, ridiculous..." He frantically raised his hands in surrender, sputtering something about how he would never presume, when she couldn't contain herself anymore and burst out in guffaws, doubling over when she took in the stunned expression on his face.
"Oh you little minx." He crowded her against the door, a wicked gleam in his eyes that sent another thrill across her skin and stilled her laughter in her chest. "That was quite good, but now I think I owe you a little payback." He stooped to lick a line along the column of her throat, sending a delicious shiver down her spine, and then concentrated his ministrations on the soft flesh just below her right ear. His hands held her hips against his, one thumb finding the gap between her jumper and her jeans, and rubbing circles over the soft skin of her waist.
"Fred," she gasped when his teeth found a particularly sensitive spot near her clavicle, her right hand tightening in his hair, and her other squeezing ineffectually at his shoulder. He groaned, and the vibration of it echoed through his chest.
He kissed her senseless, until her knees were jelly and she was leaning hard against the door behind her to remain standing and not sink to the floor. When he finally relented, he moved only so far away as to let her catch her breath, the air between them charged with electricity. Their connection was clear and bright, his thoughts and feelings flowing over her almost as if she had been feeling them herself – predominately self-satisfaction over the dazed look on her face. His own grin was so mischievous Hermione didn't know whether to hit him or to kiss him again.
A knock on the door nearly scared Hermione out of her skin, and she jumped against Fred, elbowing him in the ribs in her haste. For his part, he barely moved, only letting out a wheezing chuckle, and catching up her arms to hold her against his chest.
"Oi, put some clothes on! You two lovebirds better be decent when I come in." Heat flamed up in her cheeks and with a squeak she pulled herself out of Fred's arms and hurried into the kitchen to put the kettle on. As she busied herself gathering cups and cream and sugar she could hear muffled bragging and slapping of backs going on behind her. She pressed a cool cup against the warmth of her cheek and resigned herself to her fate; George was going to take the mickey out of her and there was nothing she could do about it.
She turned back in the direction of the door, armed now with the steadying weight of a full mug, and managed to make it to the kitchen table before decorum demanded she look her attacker in the eye. George was still standing by the door, his face disturbingly serene, but his eyes alight with a wicked gleam that spelled only trouble.
"Kids these days," he intoned, his tone a rather disturbing mimicry of his mother's, "skiving off and leaving yours truly to do all the work around here, just to sneak in a quick snog. Deplorable!" Her cheeks flamed, overachiever instincts virulent to the very last. Her head fell to the table with an audible thunk, and she let the twin's familiar teasing and laughter wash over her.
A/N: Sorry that this chapter is so incredibly late, but I am in higher education and finals are rearing their ugly head. This story is nearing completion (maybe one more chapter?), so there won't be much wait left.
Also, I write a lot about tea. Does that say something about me? My personal headcannon is that wizards heat tea using a spell, but do so in kettles so as not to be rude to any others in the house who might want a cup.