Avoiding Hermione wasn't difficult in the following weeks as she made herself very scarce. However, Fred had not been expecting to hear that she had been avoiding her best friends as well.
"Didn't you two go to her apartment?"
Harry and Ron glanced at each other before replying, "Well yeah. But she won't let us in."
"You should have forced yourself in? Did you even try apparating inside her place?"
Ron blinked, "Do we look crazy, mate? She'd hex us into the next century."
Fred wondered how he could have such a moron for a sibling.
Shrugging on his coat, he shook his head, "And you two call yourselves Gryffindors."
It seemed that he would have to look into Hermione himself.
Pausing at her door, he took a deep breath. He still didn't have the answer to the question that had been dominating his mind for the past few weeks. He had wanted to know his own intentions before seeing her again. But it seemed nothing was going his way.
Raising his hand to knock, he froze when he heard a soft whimpering from inside the apartment.
Imagining every worst scenario possible, he banged on the door, "Hermione, open up!"
When his call remained unanswered, he grew worried, "Damn it, Granger! If you don't open the –"
A clicking noise and the door opened to a disgruntled Hermione who looked like she had just gotten out of bed. Her hair was everywhere, her eyes sleepy but annoyed, and she was barely clad in shorts and a familiar black shirt.
One look at her grumpy face, and Fred Wesley got the answer to his question.
He was irrevocably in love with Hermione Granger.
So he obeyed his instincts.
And kissed her.