The sun rose over the horizon, in one room of the burrow Hermione Granger laid awake, sleep not coming to her. In a room only a few yards down the hall lay Fred Weasley, who was also awake, the searing pain of the scars he had only gotten weeks ago made it so he could not sleep. Fred wandered down to the bottommost floor of the Burrow; the room was coated in pale sunlight streaming through the windows, it almost looked as if there were a foggy layer sweeping throughout the living room and kitchen.
Fred walked slowly and painfully into the kitchen and prepared himself a cup of coffee before sitting gently down on the cushioned couch. He hated that magical scars burned and seared for longer than natural or muggle scars, it was rather stupid in his opinion. Minutes later someone walked down the stairs, and when they appeared around the corner he saw it was no other than a very tired-looking Hermione Granger.
"Morning'" Fred said waving his cup of coffee gently in the air, she rubbed her eyes and waved back before disappearing into the kitchen, then coming back with a cup of coffee herself.
"Morning" She finally said after she'd returned at sat a few feet from Fred on the couch.
"What gets you up this early?" Fred asked, sipping his coffee.
"I just couldn't sleep." Hermione said simply. Fred sighed,
"What about you?" Hermione asked also sipping her coffee.
"Scars hurting, magical enchantments." Fred muttered. Hermione frowned.
"Oh, well if you want I can make you some breakfast." Hermione offered, Fred speculated for a moment before nodding.
"Thanks 'Mione" Fred smiled.
The day drifted on slowly, the once always happy house of the Weasley household completely spirit-less. Fred. George and Hermione sat on the couch in their pajamas for the majority of the day, just talking, and completely avoiding the subject of the war, which seemed to be what the rest of the family had been talking about.
At one point during dinner the family had brought up the subject once again, Hermione had gotten so teary-eyed Fred couldn't fight the urge to get her out of the conversation, and out of the house.
"Come on," He whispered into Hermione's ear, a single tear rolled down her cheek as he whisked her away, not caring about the searing pain of his scars. He brought her outside into the garden of the Burrow, the November sun was setting. Hermione sat on the white stone bench in the garden. The harsh wind blew threw her hair and she shivered, hot tears were making paths down her wind-nipped cheeks.
"Hermione, I'm sorry, but I needed to get you out of there." Fred said, he sat next to her and put his arm around her in a friendly comforting way. She nodded as more tears cascaded down her cheeks. Fred thought quickly, he knew he couldn't keep her out in this weather for long without her catching some sort of cold, so he knew what to do.
"Hold on tight Hermione" He grasped her arm and she instinctively grasped back, suddenly she was pulled to her feet and a spinning dizzying sensation washed through her.
The next second Hermione felt her stomach drop and suddenly she was in a familiar place, a familiar place that was dark. Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Hermione steadied herself on a nearby counter, her stomach doing sickly leaps. Suddenly the lights turned on and Fred spotted Hermione.
"Oh! Sorry, I forgot about side-by-side apparition." Fred grabbed her shoulders and steadied her.
"It's okay, why didn't you just ask me to apparated by myself?" Hermione asked blinking in the bright buzzing lights of the illuminated joke shop.
"Because, you could have gotten lost, or not agreed to come." Fred said like it was a simple math problem.
Hermione sighed, wiping her eyes. "Well, what now?" She asked, she looked around the shop, it was quite amazing.
"We could have some butterbeer's in the back room if you'd like, maybe I could make some cookies?" Hermione giggled at the thought of Fred making cookies and wearing oven mitts and an apron.
"That sounds great." She replied.
Fred and Hermione both sat at a tiny two-person table in the back room, eating freshly baked Christmas sugar cookies and drinking steaming glasses of butterbeer. Hermione's cheeks were dry and her heart was light, Fred would constantly be cracking jokes and she couldn't help but laugh. When they finished the whole plate of cookies they realized the time, it had almost been midnight.
"Merlin, my mom's probably worried sick." Fred said vanishing the plate and mugs with a quick swipe of his wand.
"Should we go back?" Hermione asked Fred looked surprised at the face he saw; usually Hermione was all for going to the Burrow but now it looked like she dreaded it.
"Or, we could go upstairs to wear me and George used to sleep. You could rest up there and I could sleep down here, of course it's up to you." Fred said.
"I want to stay here, and it's up to you too, I mean, you don't have to sleep down here of course, it is you and George's shop. . ." Hermione trailed off.
"But you're the guest m'dear." Fred said with a smile.
"I guess we'll just be sleeping up stairs then, I'll sleep in George's bed." Hermione said.
"Um, 'Mione, you just might want to sleep in my bed, I'll sleep in George's bed. You see, I rigged his bed with spiders, magical spiders that take ages to get off, and the enchantment won't wear off until someone falls asleep in it. . ." Hermione seemed shocked, but humored at his news.
"Well, I could always sleep on the floor Fred."
"But you're the guest! Look, the bed's a king bed, so you get one side under the covers and I'll get one side on top of the covers, and if that makes you uncomfortable then we could always figure something else out. . ."
"Well. . . Okay. That might work."
"It's settled, shall we go to bed now?" Fred said, taking a breath of relief now that everything was worked out. They're simply return to the burrow in the morning, the hand on his mom's clock surely said "At Work" so it's not like he had run away with Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of her age.
Hermione speculated and looked around the shop, then nodded. Fred waved his wand at a shelf behind the cash register and the shelf moved to the right, relieving a marble staircase leading up to their supposed rooms.
"After you" He said, and Hermione started up the stairs.
Hermione awoke to a cool early morning wind sweeping through the open window of the room, she then noticed her and Fred were clearly under the same blanket. She scowled at first, and then realized he must have been freezing dealing with the coolness of the room all night. She didn't feel like waking up yet, her eyelids were heavy and the scent of the air outside was relaxing. Minutes passed and she just kept breathing in the nice smell of flowers and woods, which was strange because no woods surrounded Diagon Alley. When the sun was higher in the sky, and the early morning scent vanished, Hermione finally decided to awake. Fred however was still sound asleep. He was wearing his clothes from the night previous; Hermione saw the scars that lingered on his arms and felt teary-eyed again. She shook all thoughts of the war from her head and began to get out of the bed and carefully creep downstairs to the main part of the shop without waking Fred.
Hermione looked around, and realized the shop schedule was on the back of the door, she moved closer and peered at it, according to it the shop wasn't open today, so she didn't have to worry about customers coming in. She walked the shop, getting to examine the products with more peace, as she did not get the previous times she'd been in here with dozens of people. After a while she concluded Fred wasn't going to be waking up soon, and decided to write him a note;
Fred,
I went back to the Burrow, mostly to reassure everyone we are okay, meet me back there when you wake up
—Hermione
Hermione pined the note to the back of the door in front of the schedule, before appareting back to the Burrow.
With a loud pop she was back in the main room of the Burrow, everyone seemed to be gone but George, who was lying on the couch.
"Hey Hermione" He said not looking up from the book he'd been reading.
"How did you know—"
"Fred would've apparated into the kitchen, where he spends most of his time." George said simply now looking at Hermione.
"Now where have you two been, may I ask?" George said setting down his book and sitting up straighter.
"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes"
"What? Why go there? Why not go to somewhere more interesting?"
"It's not like we were on an adventure, George." Hermione said sternly. "If you must know, Fred took me there because I can't stand all this talk about the war, so he wanted us, or me to get away from it." Hermione said before sitting down on the other end of the couch.
"Oh, well Freddie's been having a hard time with the war too. . ." George said, his humorous tone long gone.
"Oh." Hermione said awkwardly, she lost her train of thought.
"So do you want some breakfast?" George asked he started to get up before Hermione waved her hand, motioning for him to sit back down.
"No, no, it's fine, wait till Fred gets back, I'll make both of your breakfast, speaking of, where's the rest of the family?" Hermione asked.
"They went to the quidditch pitch, Ron, Harry and Ginny wanted to practice before it got to cold, so mum and dad went with them."
"Why didn't you go?"
"My quidditch playing days are quite over Mrs. Granger." George said with a smile, Hermione smiled too. For minutes nobody talked. Suddenly, a distant pop was heard, then George muttered, "And there's Freddie." Before Fred came into view, his clothes wrinkled and his bright red hair disheveled. Hermione suddenly realized how she must look, and said a quick hello to Fred before scurrying up the stairs to take a shower.
When Hermione came back down the stairs, her hair was damp and she'd put on jeans and one of Mrs. Weasley's home made sweater from the Christmas previous. It was almost eleven by the time she emerged.
"Do you want any breakfast?" She asked Fred and George, they both looked at each other before nodding. Hermione made the boys' breakfast, both of them were still messy-haired and Fred had changed into sweatpants and a tee shirt, now looking identical to George, but Hermione could still tell them apart. Hermione loved how she could treat Fred and George like brothers. She was probably the closest to them besides Ginny, of the whole family.
They all sat around the coffee table, eating Hermione's pancakes. Suddenly Hermione spoke up, "When are the rest supposed to be coming back?" She asked, Fred looked curious, he must've just now realized that the rest of his family had not been present.
"Around seven maybe, they only left right before you apparated." George said taking in a mouthful of pancakes. Fred looked curious and Hermione said, "They're at the quidditch pitch." and he nodded, also taking in a mouthful of pancakes.
After the late breakfast was done, Fred and George thanked Hermione for her marvelous made–the-muggle-way pancakes. George got went to his room, saying he was going to brainstorm idea's for the shop, while Fred followed him he seemed in pain as he walked, though it was not too noticeable. Hermione watched him without saying anything, were his scars still hurting? Even after all these weeks, If not months? Hermione shook the idea of Fred, or any member of the Weasley family being hurt and cleaned up the kitchen.
Hermione sat by the fire she lit earlier, snuggled into the blanket on the couch and reading a book. It was getting cloudy, the bright late-November sky was coated smoothly with grayish clouds, it definitely looked as if snow could fall any minute, but it was peculiar that it was only November and snow looked to be in the forecast. As the winds picked up slightly and got chillier Hermione closed the windows of the burrow and let the fire warm the whole downstairs and she got lost in her book once again. Minutes, or hours later she heard a loud thump, breaking her concentration from her book; she then saw that it was sunset. Another thump came from above in the Burrow; Hermione got up, but then heard the twins loudly running down the stairs, followed by "No Way!" and "Merlin's Beard!"
"Get your shoes on Hermione, Now!" Fred hollered, he came down the last stairs, tailed by George, and then they both ran outside.
"What's going on?" Hermione said jumping up, clearly alarmed.
"Don't worry it's not anything bad, just come!" Fred said as he passed through the threshold to the outside. Hermione slipped on the flats she'd been wearing earlier before heading outside. The sight was amazing.
A light layer of snow barley covered the grass, but flakes were still down twirling from above, matching wonderfully with the sunset from behind the clouds, making the sky appear orange and pink. Fred and George stood their amazed. Hermione walked further onto the grass. It was the first snow of the year.
"First snow, eh?" Mr. Weasley said over dinner while cutting his piece of steak. "If I remember correctly, I met Molly on the first day it snowed during November a long time ago, and fell in love with her that very day." Arthur said smiling and looking lovingly at his wife, she blushed and smiled before looking down at her plate. The Weasley children all gave their parents a gross look, while Hermione smiled and Harry just looked awkward.
"Are you trying to imply we met our true loves today?" George said with a laugh, quickly glancing at Hermione.
"You never know son, you never know." Arthur said, at that moment, Ron dropped his fork loudly on his plate, and when Hermione looked up to see what the commotion was he was looking straight at her. Something was going on with the Weasley boys. . . All except Fred, who seemed quite amused by his brother's behavior.
"Well it sure sounds as if you're setting us a prophecy, dad." Ron said looking him, then Hermione. Hermione instantly remembered the war, and in their fifth year when they had fought death eaters. She glanced at Fred who was shooting his brother daggers, then looked at Hermione with a softer expression. Fred got up, and walked into the kitchen.
"No, no son, I'm setting no prophecy for love." Arthur said with a laugh, Hermione hated that word more than ever right now, why was she being so emotional? The word didn't upset her before the war, not at all, so why she not being strong like she had been for so long? All these questions were swimming through her mind as tears swam in her eyes. She quickly got up and joined Fred in the kitchen.
He was resting on the counter, his head down; he looked not sad, but distressed.
"I know, you seemed pretty upset by that word." Fred said, not looking up at her.
"I don't know why though." Hermione said blankly.
"It's going to be like this for a while, months, maybe years, before were okay again. I'm not sure. But the best we can do is spend a lot of time with the people we love."
"But what if the people we love won't shut the bloody hell up about the war! I obviously don't want to talk about it!" Hermione said rather loudly, Fred nodded slightly before looking up at her.
"It's okay, if you ever want to just talk about something else or get away, you have me and George."
Hermione cracked a smile, and so did Fred. Moment later they had been joined by George, who had Hermione's, tears dried and laughing almost instantly.