CHAPTER FOUR

Summary: Hermione's secret is discovered by The Order of the Phoenix. Before Harry is rescued, she needs to be first. But from who? With the help of Sirius she learns to put the past behind her, and with the help of two Weasleys, they show her a happy future. But Hermione isn't who she thinks she is, what she discovers will change her life for good. Rated M for a reason.

Disclaimer: All original characters and canon events belong to J.K. Rowling. Non-canon events are my own ideas. I am not making any profit from posting this fanfic.

Page count: 11

Hogwarts - Monday 11th December 1995

They looked at each other over her head and nodded.

"But you already knew that, didn't you?" George said with a small smile and they both leaned forward and placed a kiss against her cheek.

That broke Hermione out of her daze, she pulled back away from them with wide eyes and she stumbled backwards, staring at them horrified. They watched her worriedly.

Her back hit the wall and she slid down it until she hit the floor; she wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her head against her knees.

"No, no, you can't. It can't be me," she whispered, but they could hear perfectly. They made their way to her and they crouched down in front of her.

"We do and it is," George said.

"No!"

"Why can't it be you?" Fred asked softly.

"I'm damaged goods. The only people I can bare to touch me are Sirius, Remus and Jason. I likely won't see Jason again. I can't even let Harry touch me. It's Harry for Merlin's sake! Even your bloody Mum! I nearly have a panic attack in the corridors when people bump into me. When Ginny tries to link her arm through mine I pull away. Ron touched my elbow the other day in class to get my attention and I almost screamed the roof off. McGonagall had to send me to my dorm room for the rest of the lesson so I could calm myself down. I have my own dorm room now. Not for me, but for the safety of the other girls in the tower. They didn't want to risk me hurting anyone in case they touched me during a nightmare. Merlin, I'm beyond damaged!" She cried into her arms.

The twins felt their hearts break for her. They hated seeing her so upset.

"Hey, look at us," Fred said quietly.

She shook her head, so he put his hands on either side of her face, she flinched and he slowly moved her head so that it was tilted up and she was forced to look at them. He wiped away her tears with his thumbs, noticing the way she'd tensed under his touch.

"That's better. Listen to me very carefully. You are not damaged goods. That suggests there's something wrong with you. What happened to you is beyond awful and it's perfectly understandable that you don't like to be touched by anyone. But that doesn't mean that we don't fancy the pants off you, because it's evident to anyone with eyes that we do."

"We'll help you," George said, taking over for his twin. "We'll help you work on your fear of being touched. We'll help you keep your secret. We'll move at your pace. You are in control of every move between us. We would never hurt you, Hermione, you know that. Look at what we've done for you," George chuckled with a shake of his head. "We purposely got detention with you just to be able to spend more time around you. We asked you for patronus lessons so we could spend more time with you. We always change the topic of conversation when we see that it's upsetting you. We make sure you have a good laugh at least three times a week, we followed you to your defence lesson because we were worried about you and we followed you on your prefect rounds too."

"What?" she said quickly.

Fred groaned and George realised what he'd said and he laughed nervously.

"Nothing," he laughed.

"You followed me?"

"No," they all but squeaked.

"And we definitely didn't see you kick Malfoy's arse," Fred said with a wink. A small smile broke out on her face. "We followed you because we heard you were going down to the dungeons. We know the Slytherins aren't a fair bunch and if they cornered you we wanted to be there in case you needed us. But you didn't," he said proudly.

"By the way, Professor Dumbitch?" George asked with a raised eyebrow and she shrugged. "I like it, much better than what we came up with," he grinned. "Back to the point, you no longer have only Sirius and Remus, you have us as well. There are far too many reasons why we like you to explain them all, so just take our word for it."

"How long? Don't lie to me either," she muttered, not knowing if she actually wanted to hear the answer or not.

"Honestly, the summer before your fourth year, when you came to The Burrow for the World Cup. We noticed that you weren't just our little brother's best friend. It was like you'd changed, but you hadn't at the same time. It's hard to explain," Fred frowned in thought.

"We knew Ron had a thing for you so we didn't act on our feelings out of respect to him. We pushed all the feelings down and buried them. When we saw you at the Yule Ball..." George whistled, "Well, you knocked our socks off."

"The ones that were stolen?" she asked with a small smile and her tears stopped falling.

"Check out the wit on this one, Georgie," Fred laughed and George grinned.

"See, you're perfect for us and coincidentally it was." She gave a small laugh.

"We have a confession to make," Fred added with a sheepish look.

"What?"

"We spiked Krum's drink."

She stared at them as the tips of their ears turned pink and then she burst out laughing.

"You...you...spiked his..." she couldn't stop laughing and they chuckled at her. "Poor Viktor," she sighed as her laughter trailed off.

"Poor Viktor had the most stunningly beautiful girl on his arm that night, poor us for not asking you before he did," George said with a smile.

"That's better," Fred smiled. "We prefer you crying with laughter than sadness, although you're actually a pretty crier, another reason for girls to be jealous of you." She snorted in disbelief. "So, will you go on a date with us?"

"Just one date?" George asked hopefully. She bit her lip and stuttered over her words a few times. "Okay, we pretty much just bared our souls to you, so let me ask you a question, just one question. Do you like us?"

"Did you mean what you said the night of our detention?" Fred asked hopefully.

"Yes, I did," she confessed and they couldn't help their smiles. "And yes, I do," she answered with her eyes closed. "Summer before my fourth year, I noticed something was different about the two of you but I didn't know what. You were my best friend's older brothers so I pushed any feelings I had towards you down and I buried them. Then when I 'arrived' at Grimmauld I noticed that you were treating me differently, subtly of course, but I still noticed it. Then the night of the detention when I got back to my room, I was going over what you'd told me and I couldn't think of anyone who fit that description. I looked up at the mirror and noticed my hair. Then my eyes, they my skin. I was in Gryffindor and not in your year. I started panicking and I had this huge internal battle trying to figure everything out. I realised that the feelings I had for you were still there, stronger even. It's why I've been avoiding you. It was awkward. Part of me was convinced it was a coincidence and the other half believed I was the girl you had described. I couldn't deal with it and I panicked whenever I saw you coming towards me, so I ran and hid from you." She opened her eyes to see two large grins.

"So, will you go on a date with us?" they asked.

She sighed and nodded. "Yes, I will."

"Brilliant," they beamed.

"Friday? Seven o'clock?" Fred asked.

"That's fine," she agreed.

"Great, dress warm, we already have it planned out," George spoke through a grin and she shook her head at him.

"Now, do you want to do a lesson, we haven't had one in a while?" she asked them.

"Sure, let's go to the library," Fred answered with a grin of his own.

~000~000~000~

Friday 15th December 1995

Hermione was dressed and ready. She wore a light grey cashmere sweater, black skinny jeans and grey winter boots, along with a soft woollen white scarf, gloves and the matching bobble hat. She left her hair down and had on her long white winter coat. Apparently when Sirius had given Tonks and Mrs. Weasley his vault number, they went a little bit overboard with buying her new clothing. Tonks in particular hired a personal shopper and had things pulled from shelves that weren't even supposed to be for retail yet. As a result her wardrobe had grown massively and was filled with expensive labels, which Ginny had definitely noticed. She had brought the subject up more than once but with the help of Sirius and Mrs. Weasley, the subject was always changed.

Hermione headed down to the common room and made her way towards the portrait, where the twins would be waiting for her on the other side.

"Oi, Hermione!" she heard someone call. She turned around and it was Ron, who was looking at her appraisingly.

"Yes, Ronald," she sighed.

"Where are you going, it's Friday, don't you have homework to do?" he asked.

"No," she replied.

"Then where are you going?"

"Not that it's any of your business, Ronald, but I have a date," she ground out.

Ron looked at her and then burst out laughing. She felt hurt at his reaction but kept her face passive.

"Good one, Hermione, who'd want to date you?"

"Who indeed?" she muttered and then she turned and stormed out of the common room and into the hallway.

She shut the portrait behind her and took several deep breaths; she would not let him ruin her date before it even started.

"Hey, Hermione," two voices chimed.

She opened her eyes to see the twins grinning at her. As far as she could recall, that was the first time they'd used her first name.

"You look great."

She smiled at them. "Thank you, you two clean up quite nicely. It's rare to see either of you without some sort of potion ingredient spilled over you," she said and they laughed at her.

They both wore dark blue jeans and white trainers. Fred was wearing a black woollen jumper and the collar of a blue shirt underneath stood out, whereas George wore a blue woollen jumper and a white shirt. They both had on their Gryffindor scarves and winter cloaks. Their turquoise eyes sparkled at her and their shaggy red hair covered their ears and was a mess as usual, putting her wild hair to shame.

"Are you okay? You looked a little upset when you came out," Fred asked looking at her worriedly.

She smiled at him. "I'm fine, thank you, Fred. Just Ronald being his usual self." They frowned but shook their heads.

"Shall we?" George said grinning, she laughed and nodded.

He and Fred both held their arms out for her, and Hermione took them and they began walking down the halls, taking the secret passageways as shortcuts.

"I thought you don't like people touching you," George said softly.

"I don't unless it's Sirius and Remus. But I can touch other people as long as I am the one to initiate the first touch." They nodded in understanding and made small talk as they led her to their destination.

They reached The Black Lake; it had frozen over due to the cold Scottish weather and the snow that had been falling for the last two weeks.

There was a picnic blanket underneath the large tree with a few dishes that had dessert foods on them. She looked up at them in pleasant surprise as they led her over to the blanket that had been spelled to protect them from the cold snow beneath.

"Chocolate chip cookies, chocolate fudge cake with whipped cream, strawberry ice cream and marshmallows?" she said as they took a seat.

"Your favourite desserts," Fred grinned.

"How did you know that?"

"Believe it or not, we pay attention," George said. "Unlike certain people," he muttered and Hermione knew that jab was aimed at Harry and Ron.

"Seems you have a real sweet tooth," Fred teased and she chuckled.

"Where did you even get this from?"

"Dobby, he's taken with you," George said and they laughed.

They ate the food and talked and soon they were leading her over to The Black Lake. She raised an eyebrow and they grinned at her. Fred removed his wand and pointed them at her boots and he transfigured them into ice skates. She almost fell over at the sudden change in balance and they caught her and amusement sparkled within their eyes.

She scowled at them. "A bit of warning might be good next time," she grouched.

"There's going to be a next time?" Fred asked hopefully.

"Maybe, if you play your cards right." They grinned at her response.

They pulled her onto the ice and she wobbled on her feet.

"Have you done this before?" George asked, seeing as she gripped his hand tightly, not that he was complaining.

"Not since I was about eight," she admitted. "School trip," she explained. "I was rubbish, I face planted the floor, managed to stand up only to fall backwards and land on my arse." They laughed at her. "It's not funny, I accidentally fell into one of my class mates, who in turn fell into the person next to him, when I looked up five people had hit the ground, it was like human dominoes." Their laughter grew louder.

"Lethal with a wand, -"

"- Lethal without a wand, -"

"- And lethal on skates," they teased and she mock glared at them.

They spent half an hour skating on the ice, with Hermione refusing to let go of either of them for fear of falling and hurting either herself or them. They were of course more than happy with that develop and didn't bother to argue with her.

Afterwards they got off the ice and transfigured their skates back into their shoes and they cleaned up the picnic blanket and dishes. They then proceeded to have a snow ball fight and since the twins outnumbered her, Hermione cheated and spelled snowballs to follow them around. Just when they thought they were safe, they were hit in the face and Hermione would almost fall over laughing, along with the twin that didn't get hit that particular time.

After an hour of that they were all soaked and Drying and Warming Charms were needed to prevent illness.

They headed back to the common room just in time for curfew, Hermione thanked them and impulsively she kissed their cheeks and entered the common room, leaving behind two beaming red heads.

"The next date has to be even better," Fred said.

"Of course, I don't know how we're going to top that though," George replied.

"We're The Weasley Twins, we'll think of something."

"Took the words right out of my mouth."

~000~000~000~

Saturday 16th December 1995

The next day Hermione was down in the great hall eating breakfast with a large smile on her face. There weren't that many people present, she counted no more than eight, plus Professor Sprout, who looked to have fallen asleep in her chair. Hermione chuckled and shook her head. She couldn't blame her, it wasn't even eight o'clock in the morning yet, most students didn't get up till around lunch on the weekends.

She was sat in her regular seat at the Gryffindor table. She looked around the table at the wide assortments of breakfast foods. She wanted some pancakes that morning. The pancakes were closer towards the end of the table than they were to her and she sighed. She didn't want to have to get up and walk over to them and she didn't want to use magic to summon them either, she was still a Muggleborn and using magic for little tasks such as that was lazy.

She narrowed her eyes at the pancakes just wishing they were in front of her. Suddenly there was a gust of wind that settled itself around Hermione, before it headed down the table, stopping behind the pancakes, and the pancakes were blown along the table until the plate came to a stop in front of her.

She looked down at the plate of pancakes in shock, before quickly looking around the room. No one had taken any notice as to what had just happened. It was strange, there were no open windows, no draughts and even if there was, a slight draught wouldn't be able to move a full plate of stacked pancakes down half a length of the table. What had just happened?

Fred and George were staring at her from at the end of the table. They'd just entered the great hall when they saw Hermione's focused gaze narrowed on a stack of pancakes. They were going to pick the plate up and take them to her, but then suddenly something strange occurred.

They saw it.

Hermione's hair blew around her face, as if it was in the wind outdoors, and they saw what looked to be a tiny, palm sized tornado make its way down the table to stop behind the pancakes. They felt a breeze hit them as the plate of pancakes was pushed down the table only to stop in front of Hermione, who looked just as shocked as they did.

"What was that?" Fred whispered to his twin.

"I have no idea," George whispered back. "But you saw what I did; it came out of nowhere, like she was controlling it!"

"But that's impossible; you can't control nature, even with magic."

"It's the first time we've seen her do this, but it's not the first time we've seen her magic act out. Remember, rain? Thunder? Lightning? And four times apparently. She did all of that without meaning to. And now she just did something with that tiny tornado thing, with air."

"So water and air?"

"And thunder and lightning," George imputed.

"That's two elements," Fred replied whilst his attention was still on Hermione, watching as she ate her breakfast.

"Three, I'm pretty sure lightning has something to do with an element as well."

"Do we tell Sirius?" Fred asked.

"He's probably already clocked it, but we'll mention it when we next see him, we can't risk owling with the mail being screened, especially if this is something that could impact her safety," George replied.

They both nodded in agreement, before they plastered wide smiles on their faces and made their way over to Hermione, plopping down on either side of her. When she smiled at them, their smiles turned into genuine ones.

"What are you boys doing up early?" she asked them.

"Early?" they chirped.

"It's not even eight yet," she said chuckling.

They shrugged, but the grins broke out on their faces and she laughed.

"We were hoping we could have another lesson today," George said.

"Okay, but it's a Hogsmeade weekend, don't you want to go?"

"We've gotten everything we need to. You?" Fred answered.

"Everything's done and wrapped," she nodded.

"Great, straight after breakfast then?" George asked and she nodded.

After breakfast they left the great hall and headed straight to the Room of Requirement, the D.A room appeared along with the three arm chairs.

"What are we doing today?" Fred asked.

"Today you're going to attempt the charm," Hermione said, flopping down on the arm chair in front of them.

"Really?" George asked, appearing to be both surprised and excited.

"Yes. You've learned the theory, you've learned the meditation, you know the wand movements and the incantation, now you have to put it to use," she shrugged. "So, get to it."

They raised an eyebrow at her. "You're not going to show us?" Fred said.

"No, because then you'll learn my patronus without you having worked for it."

"Is it an elephant?" George guessed.

"No."

"An owl?" Fred inquired.

"No, you asked me that last night."

"Lion?"

"No."

"It better not be a snake," George said and she laughed at him.

"No, it's not a snake, or a reptile," she replied and they frowned.

"This is going to take ages to guess," Fred spoke and she smirked.

"It's also going to take you until I turn old and grey to cast the patronus if you don't get a move on."

"Bossy witch," they muttered fondly as they moved over to the middle of the room.

"You already know what you have to do, so ignore everything around you and get it done."

She watched as they closed their eyes and controlled their breathing. Whilst they did that she allowed her thoughts to wander. The happenings at breakfast with the pancakes kept plaguing her mind. It was obvious that it had something to do with air, she felt the breeze on her skin as it swept past her and headed for the pancakes, and it brought them to her. That wasn't normal.

Could she have been responsible for that?

Her magic had been acting up lately and she didn't know what to make of it. The incident at breakfast. The incident with the thunder and lightning on four separate occasions. She could swear that sometimes when she walked past a flickering flame it flared, as if wanting to touch her. She noticed that sometimes when she was upset it rained, but then again, a lot of people were sad when it rained. The previous summer when she was too warm, she wished for a gentle breeze to help cool her down, and as if her prayers had been answered, cold air would tickle at her skin and she would smile gratefully and thank Merlin.

But they were just coincidences, right? The air. The fire. The water and thunder and lightning hadn't been, but the others had. Four of Earth's natural elements. But she brushed that thought away; even magic couldn't manipulate the elements. But still, it was four out of the five. So the fifth? Earth. She thought back, trying to remember if she's had any unexplainable experiences with the element of earth. She frowned and concentrated hard, and then she found something, a memory buried for some time.

She was four years old, it had been raining for days and it had finally stopped. Hermione stepped out into the back garden of her house in her raincoat, jeans, jumper and wellies. She frowned when she saw that the garden was swamped. The grass and mud sloppy and all of the flowers were dead from the onslaught of rain for six days straight.

It'd upset her to see the garden that way; the garden was her favourite place in the world. She felt tears welling up in her eyes and she squeezed them shut and sniffled. When she opened her eyes again she gasped. All of the water was gone, and the grass dried out. She stared at a single dead flower, a daffodil. It suddenly straightened up as if it was alive. Her eyes were wide and mouth hung open as she made her way towards that daffodil. She sat down in front of it and continued to stare at it, watching as the shrivelled up petals returned to their smooth and soft texture and the bright colour come back. She gawked.

She then looked at the daffodil next to it and suddenly that stood up, its petals were repaired and the beautiful colours returned. She looked around the garden in glee as daffodils, tulips, daisies, roses, buttercups and lavender spouted from the ground, returning the garden to its former glory.

That had been her first magical act, she was sure of it. But also earth? If it was, that was the full five, so what did it mean? She would have to do some research and talk to Sirius about it.

"It's not working," she heard Fred say, jolting her out of her thoughts.

"It won't on your first day of trying, it took me three months."

"What was your happiest memory?" George asked curiously.

She chuckled. "Crookshanks attacking Ron." They laughed at her. "If you can't choose one memory in particular, then combine them, combine the feelings you felt during those moments. You have to believe that you can cast the charm otherwise all of this is just pointless. So try again."

They sighed but did, thirty minutes later there was a dull glow emitting from the tip of Fred's wand before it disappeared. Hermione looked up and once more snapped out of her thoughts when she noticed. She gave him a proud smile.

"That's great, Fred!" He beamed at her praise and smirked at his twin, who muttered under his breath but had a small proud smile on his face. "You almost had an in-corporeal patronus, keep practicing and before you know it you'll have a full patronus. George," she turned to him and then cocked her head in thought. "Sit down," she gestured to one of the arm chairs in front of her.

George shrugged and walked over to an arm chair and sat down. She stood up and walked behind his chair and placed her hands on his shoulders, she could feel the tension in his muscles and frowned.

"Why are you so tense?" she asked. "Never mind, you must be doing the meditation wrong. The incantation's right and your wand movements are perfect. You've got the theory down, so it's either the meditation, the happy memory or you don't believe in yourself," as she spoke she was unconsciously massaging his shoulders and George sighed and slumped against the back of the chair. Fred moved to sit in the arm chair beside George and George sent him a smug look and Fred chuckled in reply.

Hermione could feel the tension leaving George and when he practically moaned she blushed and moved her hands away from him.

"Try again," she said, looking away from Fred who was smirking at her reaction.

George sighed and stood up. He closed his eyes and Hermione saw a look of concentration on his face, before it took a serene look and he raised his wand.

"Expecto Patronum," he said clearly.

Like Fred, George's wand began to glow a dull colour and when he opened his eyes he was surprised and the light faded until it was gone.

"See, you can do it. Don't stress yourself out too much. Now lesson's over the for the day, I need to do some research."

"Research?" George echoed.

"For the D.A?" Fred asked with a bitter tone.

"No, something I've recently become interested in. Just a small project." Her response earned her a raised eyebrow from the both of them.

"Small project?" George said.

"Yes."

"Not going to tell us what it is?" Fred asked.

"No," she said and then she waltzed out of the room and they chuckled at her.

"Wait a minute!" Fred called, she turned and looked at them. "Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with us tomorrow?"

"Since we don't need to do any Christmas shopping we can have a walk around?"

She agreed and they beamed as she left the room.