A/N: silverbirch: the lurve will come... eventually :P

Thank you all for the reviews. I really appreciate them and I'm so happy that you like my... er... creation :P.

Thanks to my beta AsanteSanaSquashBanana.

Sorry for the long wait but I'm really sick and I don't have that much strength to write. And my internet is having bad days as well. Thanks for the patience and I hope that you like Chapter VII.

Cheers :)

Chapter VII

Hermione woke up with a massive headache. She groaned and tried to open her eyes fully but hissed in pain as soon as the light reached her pupils. What the hell? The last thing she remembered was eating dinner with George. Think Hermione, think... What happened next? Eeesh... I must've passed out. I knew wine wasn't such a good idea... wine! Gosh. I hope George has some hangover potion here... She got out of the bed with a great difficulty and felt the way to the bathroom with her hands for she was still unable to open her eyes. Once she was in the bathroom she tried to peek through her eyelashes to find the potion in the cupboard. Having found none she quietly sank to her knees and took her head to her hands slightly massaging her temples. The pain was getting unbearable. Never. Ever. Will. I. Drink. Wine. Again. Aaaargh. Suddenly she felt her head being pulled back and something damp was being placed on her forehead. She revelled in the feel of the cool cloth on her temples and allowed her rescuer to pour something sour down her throat. The headache slowly started going away and she opened her eyes to see striking blue orbs surrounded by a mass of freckles and longish red hair. She let herself smile.

"How will I ever repay you, kind sir?" George smirked at her and held out his hand to help her stand up.

"I left the hangover potion at your night table... What were you doing here?" She groaned.

"My head hurt so much that I couldn't open my eyes. I barely made it to the bathroom which was my natural choice of a place to keep such potions in. I hadn't thought that you'd be considerate enough to leave one in my bedroom... Now that I think about it... It was quite stupid of me." George looked at her weirdly. "What?"

"Do you, by any chance, remember anything that happened last night... at all?"

"Um... We had dinner. I drank too much. Knowing me, I probably passed out at the table. I'm not very good with wine, you know" George looked somehow relieved.

"That's exactly what happened. So, want any breakfast?" She looked at him quizzically but he was already making his way to the kitchen. She followed him wordlessly wondering if he wasn't keeping something from her. Forget it Hermione, even if he is hiding something, he's probably doing it to save you from the embarrassment. How...considerate. She looked at his broad back and mouthed a quiet "thank you". At least I don't have to know if I threw up all over the house.

"So... Fred is coming over today, isn't he?"

"I invited him yesterday and he said he will so I guess that he'll be here in few hours."

"About that... What exactly do you have in mind, eh?"

"In mind? What do you mean?" He tried to put on an innocent face but failed miserably. The gleam in his eyes gave him away.

"You know exactly what I mean." She smirked at him. "You're planning something and I know it. What is it?"

"Well... That's for me to know and for Fred to find out."

"Prat."

Fred was sitting at the table casting desperate glances at Hermione trying to make her help him. She, however, was taking immense pleasure in watching his dismay. George simply outdid himself. She had suspected something like this but her suspicions were nowhere near as extravagant as the real thing. The ultimate challenge. The moment of truth. The final battle. The last chance for Fred to prove himself once and for all. She was going to enjoy it. And so was George by the look of things. He picked up a plate and pushed it right under Fred's nose.

"Want some... Dear brother of mine?" Hermione never seen George looking like this before. The evil gleam in his eyes reminded her of a wild panther looking at his prey. Fred gulped. He must've taken his 'being a prey' part seriously thought Hermione.

"But... Hermione is the... um... lady here. Shouldn't you offer her first? Heh..." Hermione noticed that he tried looking at everything but the dish. Hey... Come on. It's not THAT bad Fred... But she noticed that it was indeed THAT bad. George took special care for the food to look extra-awful today. She was sure the taste was as great as always though. George assured her of that numerous times while they were waiting for Fred to show up. George was beginning to say something but Hermione decided to have some fun of her own.

"Oh but you're the guest today Fred! We made sure everything is just perfect for you! It's only polite that you acknowledge our effort." She ceased breathing for a second to stop herself from laughing out loud at the look on his face. She suspected that until now he was sure she was on his side. George beamed at her. She smiled back. Fred sighed in defeat. He took a spoon into his trembling hand and dug it into the pap. George's eyes were following the path of the spoon from the bowl to the plate closely. Hermione mentally laughed at the sheer absurdity of the tension that accompanied the situation. Fred stared at his plate intently as if he was trying to make the contents disappear. No such luck.

"Just get on with it! It's not going to bite you! It should be the other way round!" George was getting impatient. Hermione could tell that he really wanted Fred to pass his challenge so they could be brothers again. Make no mistake, they were brothers right now too, but George had to take his revenge, make Fred really atone for his wrongs. Hermione wouldn't have taken this matter so seriously if she was George but it wasn't really her business. It was for the twins to deal with.

Fred took his fork and stabbed the pap with it. It didn't react. He nodded. Hermione smiled. It seemed that the meal passed the first test – it was dead. He lowered his head and examined it closely. He nodded again. It didn't contain any unidentifiable substances. Pass. He sniffed it, nodded yet again. It wasn't rotten. Pass. He sat back in his chair, closed his eyes and took the mush into his mouth. Hermione noticed that George abandoned blinking altogether and was staring at Fred with an unreadable expression. Hermione thought it was a mix between anxiousness, exasperation and amusement. Fred swallowed, his Adam's apple moving up and down. That seemed to wake George up from his trance. Silence fell over the room. The atmosphere was so tense that even Hermione stopped breathing for a second, eagerly awaiting Fred's reaction. Then she noticed the corner of Fred's mouth twitching slightly. Something suddenly dawned on her.

"You prat!" The twins looked at her in surprise. "You knew! You knew all along and you did it all on purpose!" Fred smirked at her.

"Of course I knew." He smiled. "Do you think I don't know my brother? I knew what he was planning right away. He wanted to play with me so I decided to play along. Have some fun of my own. The looks on your faces were priceless I must say." He grinned at George who just grinned back. At least George doesn't seem to be mad at him. That's good.

"Thanks, bro."

"You're welcome George. I knew I would have to taste your cooking at some point in my life... At least I had a good reason."

"You still didn't say what you thought about it..." Fred looked George right in the eyes and took his time before answering. George's face was beginning to fall slowly but Fred gave him a huge beam.

"Simply marvellous."

After Fred had gone George lost the only distraction that kept him from thinking about the events of the previous night. He decided not to tell Hermione about her weird behaviour blaming it fully on the alcohol overdose. He was relieved that she didn't inquire him any further. He knew that she sensed that he was keeping something from her, even the more reason to feel relief. Her behaviour made him realize that his plan to make her like him back will have to wait. He realized that whatever attraction he might feel for her will have to wait until she was no longer his brother's wife. If Ron did find out about it somehow he wouldn't give her the divorce out of sheer vengeance. And he just HAS to give her the divorce... He has to...He looked at Hermione who was wiping the dishes he washed. Your stupidity astounds me Ron... Ok, so maybe she wasn't the prettiest one there, her hair was dull brown and bushy, her eyes were too close together and her nose was too pointy but she had... the aura, as he liked to call it, surrounding her. Her smile lit up her whole face, her eyes seemed to dance when she was talking about something she liked, loved, adored... She was a genuinely good person, always helping others and never expecting help in return. And when someone did help her, like he did, she expressed her gratefulness in the fullest. She ate his cooking for Godric's sake. There was nothing better than that.

"What are you humming?"

"Oh.. That's a melody from a muggle animated film I really liked when I was younger. It may sound stupid but I really liked cartoons, even when I was a teenager... I still do as a matter of fact... This one is one of my favourite." She smiled at the recollection of the film. "It's about a Russian princess that doesn't know she's a princess until a young man takes her on a beautiful journey to Paris to meet her supposed grandmother."

"How come she didn't know she was a princess?"

"She was put into an orphanage when she was really young after her parents were killed by a madman called Rasputin. No one in the orphanage knew she was a princess so they just figured she's one of the many commoners' kids."

"So how did that guy know she was a princess?"

"He wasn't sure but he thought that her resemblance to a portrait of the royal family couldn't be a coincidence. He persuaded her to come to Paris with him so she could be questioned by the princess's grandmother. They fell in love when they were travelling... It's a really heart warming tale you know... Not the usual princess falls for a prince kind of thing. It's not something you would expect. Not at all. It's great... Everyone should do what they want, and not what's expected of them... Me, I..." Her voice wavered and she looked at her hands. He knew she was thinking about her relationship with Ron.

"Look, Hermione, you don't..."

"Ever since the beginning... Everybody's been always telling me how Ron and I fit together, how we should be together, how we should marry and have a bunch of red-haired kids. Even my own mother, she was always asking about 'that ginger guy I always spend my time with'. Dad was always telling me how Ron makes an impression of a very sensible young man. He never said things like that. He scared off all of my previous boyfriends. He almost fainted when I showed him Krum's picture... But somehow he accepted Ron immediately. I guess they expected us to get married too. Your mum, I think, she too, to some extent, wanted us to get married. What I mean is... She always wanted me to be a part of your family and Ron was the person that could take care of that... He was the natural choice... My best friend... Even you and the rest of your brothers... Always making jokes about us finally getting together and making those kissing noises whenever we were around... The pressure was overwhelming... I guess I always did what was expected of me, always the perfect student, never breaking rules without a really good reason, never having a detention, never arguing... So I guess I just went with that, somewhere along the way I made your beliefs my beliefs... I started thinking that... maybe... somewhere deep down... I really want to marry him, you know. Make no mistake, I loved him, I really did, but I didn't want to marry right away, I always wanted to study further after Hogwarts, I wanted to have a job, I wanted to... I..." Her voice cracked and tears started to flow down her face. "I wasn't happy... I wanted a fairy tale and all I got was an immature prat... I realized that you get to know a person only after you live with them for a while... I never got to know Ron at all before our marriage, I always thought he was sweet, respectful, kind, somehow childish but always on the cute side... Never before had I been so wrong, he's nothing like that, he... I hate him George... I hate him for what he did..." He was hugging her by now and she was crying to his shirt in the middle of the kitchen. He put his hand on her back and stroked it reassuringly.

"Shhh... Calm down... We'll make him suffer Hermione... We will... I'll make sure of it."

End of Chapter VII