Title:
The End of a Bad Year
Ship: Fred/Hermione
Rating: PG-13
Word
Count: 445
A/N: Written in celebration of Fred's birthday.
Prompt by vegetasbubble:
Bad luck to have a woman on board, too. Even a miniature one. -
Pirates
of the Caribbean.
Part of the freds_not_dead
universe.
It had been a bad year.
First, George had run off and gotten married to Fred's old girlfriend. This really wouldn't have bothered him all that much if Angelina hadn't also insisted that she and her husband now needed their own flat. They'd moved out right after the honeymoon forcing Fred to spend most of his evenings alone.
Second, Hermione had broken up with Ron after finding a pair of women's knickers mixed in with his dirty laundry. It actually might have been funny to watch Ron stammering that the knickers were his and he was just 'experimenting', if Hermione hadn't begged Fred to let her have George's old room. It just so happened that a 'depressed Hermione' also equaled an irritating, uptight, and generally dull Hermione. Fred had been forced to use his considerable entertainment skills just to wring smiles and eventually laughs from new flat mate.
Rounding out the trilogy of the year's bad events had been Fred developing a crush on said new flat mate. It had snuck up on him, so he didn't even realize he fancied her until it was too late to do anything to prevent it. The crush would have been tolerable if there were any chance the brainy brunette returned his feelings. However, despite Fred's overt flirting, Hermione never responded in any manner other than friendly affection.
His unrealized romantic longings became a nightmare of monumental proportions when Hermione offered to take him out for dinner and a drink on his birthday. She made it abundantly clear that they weren't on a date by offering to be his 'wingman' and support him as he tried to pick up a bird for the evening. In fact, she spent the entire first half of the meal pointing out attractive witches who walked into the Leaky Cauldron.
Things only got worse when Lee Jordon showed up at their table. Lee and Hermione got into an argument after he suggested that that it was bad luck for a bloke to have a woman as a 'wingman', even if she was petite with a relatively unimpressive rack. Fred had figuratively leapt to the defense of Hermione's 'rack' by proclaiming quite passionately that her breasts' firmness and shape more than made up for their smallish cup size. By the end of his monologue, Lee was snorting with laughter and Hermione was staring at him with wide-eyed surprise.
It had been a horribly embarrassing beginning to his new year. Still it seemed like things were finally looking up. Fred grinned at the naked, bushy-haired woman lying beside him. She smiled back, leaned toward him, and whispered "Happy Birthday" before kissing him on the lips.
