Damn it! And he had been so close to making a clean get-away, too! A kiss was the very last thing Fred Weasley was expecting. In a very "Ron-like" moment, color rushed into his face, tinting his ears a bright shade of red. He barely caught himself from stumbling backwards and falling flat on his bum in the snow. The only reason he didn't yelp when Hermione grabbed his robes was because his mouth was understandably preoccupied. Doing a bit of quick thinking, he considered the options available to him. There were two different ways he could respond to this situation.

First, he could go with his first instinct and run - run as fast as he could.
Or, second, he could humor Hermione by returning the kiss.

Now... if he was any person with half a brain, he probably would have pulled back from the kiss and apologized, begin explaining himself. But this is Fred we're talking about here - a particularly frustrated and baffled Fred at that! This in mind, it really wasn't that tough a decision to make. A good snog and a happy Hermione was far more desirable than a slap in the face and a hurt and confused Hermione. Though he had a feeling he might regret it later, he decided upon the latter.

Tightening his arm about her waist both to steady himself and draw her closer, Fred reciprocated the kiss with just as much ardor as Hermione gave it. As weird as this night was, he still wasn't quite put off by the kissing. He entertained the vague idea that if she enjoyed this kiss, she might just forgive him for whatever he had done before and stop acting so bloody wonky.

Wonky indeed. Hermione would have… -

Wait a moment.

What was going on!

With a deep breath and a small gasp, Hermione took her tongue out of Fred's mouth, and a shocking wave of reality hit her hard in the face.

This was COMPLETELY out of character for her! To be snogging Fred in the snow, no matter how wonderful it felt, was brash, and vulgar, and NOT her in the SLIGHEST!
How dare she do this all because she was worried she might not please Fred? How DARE SHE?
She took one step back, stepped sideways, back to center, and fixed worried eyes on him.

Without thinking, in a moment of confusion and anger, she slapped Fred across the face, and it was then that Hermione Granger had an official wig out.

"What the hell am I doing?" She cried hysterically, "What are you doing? What are WE doing? I – I didn't – you never –" Incoherent words kept coming out of her mouth, as another sharp arrow of realism hit her in the head. She had just /sworn/…!
Her breath was coming in short supply and the entire world felt like it was squeezing in on her. Her eyes were wider than gold galleons.

"Why am I doing something like this? It was not supposed to go this way… how could you let me do that? Don't you have any common sense? You should've stopped me! I should've stopped me! Why did we just do that? Do I not have a shred of dignity? You need to exercise more self-control Fred, and should have realized I wasn't acting like myself! This was NOT supposed to happen!"

Her eyes were darting left and right, her voice raised, her tone panic-stricken.
It was as if she hated herself for what she'd done, couldn't believe that Fred had let her do it, and on top of it all, wanted to dig a hole a crawl right into it from shame.

"What was I thinking?" She continued, an angry tear falling from her eye directly onto the ground. "This is not right! I should be more sensible. We both should be more responsible… DON'T do that EVER AGAIN!" Her shouting at Fred ceased, as with a horrified sigh, she turned around, hurried across the lawn, and disappeared inside the castle doors.

Fred gaped after Hermione, feeling his anger rise with every step she took away from him. While she was having her little snit, he was uncapable of doing anything other than staring, stock-still and shocked speechless, as she burst into hysterics. But now - now, as she was walking away, he had plenty of things he wanted to say! Plenty of words were spinning around on his head, just begging to be let loose, and any one of them would probably make Hermione blush for an entire week straight!

Wild with a medley of anger, confusion, hurt, frustration, and just a pinch of mortification, he had no idea what to do. Part of him wanted to storm after Hermione and give her a piece of his mind, but another part of him, the sane part of him that wasn't insulted and embarrassed and was willing to acknowledge that Hermione was entirely entitled to this flip-out, advised him whole-heartedly against it. So, he let her go. When the castle doors closed behind her, he whirled with a vicious snarl on the nearest inanimate object - the tree. He gave it a vicious kick, and let loose a torrent of those words he'd wanted to use in his reply to Hermione. The only purpose it served was to give him a throbbing toe and a sore throat.

This accomplished, he quit abusing the tree. Still muttering under his breath, the red-haired (and red-faced) boy stormed away. For a moment he considered not going back to the castle at all. He didn't feel like talking to anybody at the moment, and freezing his arse off in the bleachers of the Quidditch Pitch was quite preferable to getting into another fight. But then he reasoned that this wasn't such a good idea. Hyperthermia wasn't that good a way to go. So off he went towards the castle, though took his bloody time about it. He didn't want Hermione to still be in the common room by the time he got there.

This was the weirdest effing night. If he learned nothing else from it, it was that girls, or maybe just Hermione in general, were absolutely bonkers, and that he would never kiss another one of them again. (This was just a hasty declaration made in the heat of anger - he knew full well he'd never hold to that, but it was nice to say, not to mention comforting.)

How dare he. How dare he.

Those were the only words that ran past Hermione's eyes over and over, burned into her brain, as she stormed inside the castle.
She knew Fred was a little... well... out there, but this was far beyond what she'd ever imagined.
He had used her!
To get what his own selfish, stupid, flamboyant, crazy attitude wanted, he'd allowed her to go through with that.
Why the thought of what she'd done to try and make him accept her was preposterous! And he'd accepted it!
What if...
Her eyes widened.
What if he only wanted to be with her for wild snogging sessions in the snow?
What if there were no other girl who would have him so he decided to go with her... the girl with no head on her shoulders when it came to love, the stupid academic. And even if that was an oxymoron, she was too hysterical at the time to think it.
But what if it was true?
This began to strike up new fears inside Hermione.
What if Fred didn't really care about her?
Hot tears sprung to Hermione's eyes as this new and painful fright was pushed to the back of her mind, and since there were other problems in her head, the tears remained, threatening to fall.
What had she done...
She had acted foolishly. And she felt used.

With a quick wipe at her eyes, Hermione walked up to the fat lady.
"Bean Sprouts" She said quickly, eyes darting everywhere but the lady in the pink dress.
"Oh, dear, what's the matter? You look positively dreadful! It is very cold out there, you know" The Fat Lady said genially. "A good warm up of tea does the right trick" She added, giving Hermione nothing but unsolicited advice when she'd rather just pass through. "It usually clears out the sinuses and comforts the tummy. So you do that, alright"
Hermione nodded blankly, and the portrait swung forward to permit her inside.
Usually she would have gone up to her dormitory to sleep, but she was too upset to even entertain the thought.
The fire looked nice and inviting, so she sat down on one of the couches and folded her arms, ignoring the looks she received from Harry and Ron, (who were sitting at a table in the corner,) and Lee and George, who were also at a table, though on the other side of the room in darkness.

That GIRL.
Damn it!
What was she trying to do? Was she trying to drive him crazy?
How was he supposed to know what she was thinking?
DID SHE, or did she NOT, initiate that kiss?
BOTH times!
If so, then how in the name of Merlin was he supposed to know when she meant it, and when she didn't? How was HE supposed to know that she didn't really want to kiss him? How was HE supposed to read her mind! Did she think he knew Occlumency?
In HIS mind, if somebody did something without being asked, it meant that they bloody well wanted to do it!
These thoughts spun angrily through his head as he prowled through the castle on his way to the common room.
He had a hot temper, he admitted, but nobody, NOBODY had ever gotten him so riled as he was now. Well, maybe Hermione was clever. Maybe SHE had the gift of superior knowledge of the opposite sex. But she knew how damned oblivious he was to some things! She knew! Why did she have to play off of that?
Maybe she did it on purpose. Maybe she didn't like him after all, but was too insecure to say so, and set them up for a break-up.
This did nothing to improve his mood.

Fred had a few words in mind when the Fat Lady asked him for the password, but he doubted any of them would let him in, even if he did say the correct word afterwards. He was still fuming by the time he stormed into the Common Room. He was hoping to find it empty. It was late enough, and everyone was already in such down spirits about the Quidditch Game, he expected most of them to be in bed. But he had no such luck.

There was George. There was Lee. There was Harry, and there was Ron.

Well, that was alright. He could handle them. As long as they didn't say a word, he could handle them. Decided that he would rather sit and brood than go to bed, lay down and brood, he eyed a chair near the fire and started towards it -
and then stopped dead in his tracks, catching sight of the fifth person in the room.
Ah. Hermione. Just perfect. Just the girl he wanted to see.

Seething, Fred took a step back, but went no further. Fists clenched and glaring, he battled between tearing off towards the dormitories and sitting down and making HERMIONE leave.

Harry and Ron were looking up at Hermione blankly. It was obvious she was miffed, but about what?

Then they both watched as Fred stormed in, looking thoroughly ticked off, and when he hesitated to sit near Hermione, they knew that something was wrong.

Lee even turned around and watched from his position at the dark table with George.

"... Hermione" Harry asked uneasily, looking from one adolescent to the other.

She, in reply, didn't answer, but turned around and stared at him. "Harry, I really don't feel lik-" But her voice stopped in her throat when she saw Fred and a prickle of anger swept through her.

"You," She said accusingly, getting to her feet and placing her hands on either side of a squashy armchair. "Why are you here? Why aren't you off kissing some other girl who obviously can give you what you want more than I can? It would be better than taking advantage of me!"

"Take advantage of you?" Fred's voice was just a little bit louder than he had intended it to be. He cast an angry look in the direction of the other occupants of the room, as if they were performing some sort of cardinal sin by being present for Hermione's little tiff. Shifting the glare to the girl, he scowled all the harder. She had some nerve. Really. At least this effectively made up his mind. He was certainly not going to leave, and let her have the last word like that.

"I think not! Why don't you just go off and find yourself another boyfriend to throw yourself at?" he suggested, flinging his arm in the direction of Harry and Ron. "And then flip at him for thinking you were doing it because you wanted to!"

The livid boy prowled moodily over to the armchair across from Hermione's. He threw himself down into the comfortable chair, crossed his arms, and stared boorishly ahead of him into the fire. He was hoping to make it perfectly clear that he was not going to leave. Go and kiss another girl indeed! He'd sooner kiss a house-elf, if that was the kind of reaction he was going to get.

"I don't know about you, Hermione," Fred snarled, glancing sidelong at the object of his angry thoughts. "But where I come from, when a girl kisses somebody, she wants to be kissed back."

She snorted. Oh ho, yes sir, she snorted. She snorted because the absurdity of Fred's sentence was almost overbearing.
He was so… stupid! SO stupid. So stupid she wanted to scream.
"Of course she does!" Hermione said loudly. "In the same way she kissed him in the first place! Not like some flimsy little girl who wants to be kissed like a rabid animal! And you know something else?" Hermione stormed over to stand directly in front of the fire, facing Fred. She folded her arms.
"You should not make someone feel uncomfortable for not kissing you good enough. You should not do that! Expecting so much of me and when I finally give it to you unwillingly, taking advantage of it! You acted like a vulture! A disgusting, two-faced… thief!"

Fred leapt to his feet, shouting indignantly. Now that was out of line! In fact, it was so outrageously out of line, he was seriously beginning to doubt that he and Hermione were talking about the same incident! Actually, now that he thought about it, considering how oddly the girl was acting lately that probably wasn't all that far from the truth. Urgh. As if he wasn't already confused enough already!

"Steady on there, sweetheart" he cried. "Vulture! Thief! You've got to be joking! Do you think you were the only one uncomfortable back there? You think I'd force you to do something like that? You've gone batty, haven't you"

His voice was rising in pitch as well as volume. He could not remember feeling so furious or frustrated with a single person before in all his life - not even with Draco Malfoy, when he had wanted to beat the snarky son-of-a-bitch's face in. He combed his fingers agitatedly through his bright red hair, and he cast yet another violent look about the room, before returning it to Hermione.

"What did you expect me to do, eh" he demanded hotly. "Would you've liked me to push you away? Embarrass the both of us that way? I'm sure you would have been thrilled with that! Either way, you would have had my head"

He advanced a step or two on the girl, tone dropping threateningly as he carried on.

"You set me up for this, and you damn well know it" he jabbed a finger accusingly at Hermione's chest, brown eyes dark and sparking. "If you were tired of me, you should have just told me so! I would have saved you the trouble of going into such theatrics"

"Tired of you" She shouted back, voice nearly breaking in hysterics. She even did a small wave with her hand, and her body twitched. "Tired of you? NOW who's the one who's gone batty? That doesn't even have anything to do with the ISSUE"
Well, it was true. That wasn't the problem in the slightest. And here he was, bringing it up. He'd made such a mess of the entire affair. No pun intended.
"You honestly think I would set you up for something like this? You honestly believe that! Really! Tell it to my face, Fred! Just say it. Right now. If you honestly believe this is my fault - SAY IT. Right now."
Half of this was stupid for Hermione, and have of it was a little bit clever.
It was stupid in the respect that if Fred said he didn't, she would have won the fight. He would know it, she would know it. And he probably wouldn't simply because he was extremely angry at the time. So she was setting herself up for failure. In the other sense, if he said he did believe it was her fault, well... she would be so angry with him that the fight would last for days and days.

Fred was well aware of the trap he was being led into, and, yes, it made him angry enough to simply say it to her face right then and there, regardless of what he really believed. He was shaking then. He stood stock-still, glowering down at Hermione as he considered his response. The fact that she was setting him up for this now only validated his claim that she had set him up before. He should say it. He should tell her he thought she was a rotten sneak. And yet… that would mean walking right into her hands. Either way, Hermione would win.

He was suddenly and inexplicably tired of this conversation.

"I don't know," he snarled. "But you sure aren't giving me a reason to think otherwise right now, and sure isn't my damned fault!"

And that was it for him. He wasn't going to waste another second of his precious time bantering with the girl. She wouldn't listen to a word he said, and he certainly wasn't going to believe a word that came out of her mouth any time soon. He pushed past Hermione and stormed off towards the boy's dormitories.

At that moment, Hermione's blood boiled.
She had never been this angry before. Not in her entire five years at Hogwarts.
"FINE! Go back there. And - and - STAY THERE! I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN"
And at the moment - she truly didn't want to see him again.
She was so hurt, so upset, and so just plain angry with him that she could eat Crookshanks.
Well, not really, but she stormed up the stairs to the girls dormitories just the same.
Slamming the door so loudly that Harry and Ron actually winced, she flopped into bed and felt as though she wanted to cry.
Not out of sadness. Out of pure rage.
It wasn't strong enough to be hate... no... but a betrayal and furiousness so strong that she didn't know how they would ever get through it. If they ever did.