Thank you for reading, reviewing, alerting and favouriting!
.
.
Happy reading!
.
.
CHAPTER 21.
.
.
After the very emotional upheaving day Hermione had had, Fred insisted that she take the next day off from school. After literally battling with her, he got her to take a holiday. He took off from the shop too.
They just sat at home, catching up on sleep and playing exploding snap. Hermione refused to play wizards chess. Her reason for staying home was to relax, not to get riled up over a violent chess game.
Dan and Bruce came back from school and the 4 of them had lunch and played some games before nap time.
Hermione was feeling better at the end of the day and so they resumed their routine. She would also come by at the shop since it served as a good distraction and she frankly loved working on www products. It really challenged her creative side and was brilliant, unusual magic at it's best.
The week went on as usual; the only change was that Hermione no longer put up the silencing charm on her room.
Fred had absolutely refused to let her do that. Instead, they had put a quieting charm outside the twins' room so that they wouldn't be able to hear anything that was happening outside but Fred and Hermione would hear them if they woke up or made noise.
Fred didn't care if Hermione did wake him up with her screams. He would sit with her till they died down and she was better.
After his realisation, he could barely think about anything else beside her but it was all very new and besides he didn't know how she felt about him. It was too soon to tell her anything. Mainly because, he wanted to sort himself out and also because he didn't think it was fair to spring his feelings on her after she had had such a breakdown.
And to top it off, her so called date was still in the picture. She was too tired to go on another date so soon, but he had owled (to Fred's greatest displeasure) and she had said that in the coming week they would meet up.
But he pushed all jealousy aside, and focussed on getting her back into her usual Hermione Granger, 'teacher to young wizards and witches and brightest witch of her age' role.
She didn't know this, but every night after she went to sleep, he would sit outside her door for hours, sometimes fall asleep, in case she had any of the nightmares again.
It had been a week since, and she slept well without any trace of disturbing dreams.
Though one night, she had started trembling and groaning in her sleep. And had Fred not kept and extendable ear handy by her door, he wouldn't have known.
He sped to her room, and pulled her into a hug, wondering if he should wake her up. She seemed disturbed and was babbling something, but it was definitely not as bad as the first one had been. Her face was still covered with sweat but she had stopped trembling and was breathing normally. He decided to hold on to her for a while longer. Not only for her sake but for his as well. She slept well for the rest of the night.
And so did he. Well, his arm was dead from being under her lean, small frame for the entire night. But besides that, sleeping next to the woman he had started to love, counted as the best night he had ever had.
He decided to leave before Hermione woke up, to save her from the embarrassment. He levitated her and retrieved his heavy arm, brought her back to the bed and silently tiptoed out of her room.
The small scale nightmares continued for a while and Fred was always there to get her out of it. As always, he left in the morning before she could wake up.
But tonight was different. She had not had any nightmare for the last 2days and so Fred had assumed she would sleep well. But he still checked on her at midnight and kept the extendable ear on.
At around 3 am, he was jolted out of his sleep by the now familiar shriek of terror.
He ran in the darkness to her room, to see a repeat scene of Hermione wildly sobbing.
He quickly lit the room and grabbed her, waking her up. It was easier to wake her up this time. And she was relieved to see Fred.
Fred, in turn was relieved that her latest nightmare didn't last for longer than 5 minutes.
Hermione seemed more open to the idea of letting Fred take care of her this time. She hadn't known of her smaller nightmares, as this was the only one after the first one when she had woken up.
She gladly accepted the tea he had prepared.
As she hugged her goodnight and kissed her temple he said, "Sleep well now. Do you want me to give you one of our patented daydream charms? You could take 3 at a time without any harm. They'll give you good dreams." He tried to tease her.
She smiled slightly.
She hesitated for a minute, like she wanted to say something but couldn't get the words right.
"I was joking Mione." Fred said, thinking maybe he had embarrassed her.
She shook her head.
"No. It's not that." She said finally. "It's ok. Good night Fred."
She started walking towards her room. And Fred looked at her retreating back for 5 seconds and walked into his.
She definitely had started to say something. Fred thought.
But he didn't want to push her. Not tonight. She was tired as it was.
He sat at the edge of his bed for a few minutes before he sighed and ran his hands over his head and face. He was wide awake now. Partly due to the tea and partly because he worried that the nightmare would re-occur.
He didn't hear her until she opened his door a little wider.
He looked up from his position, surprised to see her there.
"I'm glad you're still up." She said, nervously hovering at the door yet.
"Why are you still up?" He asked worriedly.
"Umm. Yeah. About that." she started.
"Hermione." He said softly but strongly, "whats wrong love? Do you need anything? You know you can tell me anything, right?"
She nodded.
"Thanks. That's why I'm here. I'm really sorry to impose, but Fred, I really don't want to be alone tonight. Could I... "She gulped, "could I please, if you think it's fine, sleep here tonight?"
Fred chuckled. "That's what you've been debating about asking me for the past 15 minutes?"
She nodded sheepishly.
He got up and walked over to her and hugged her and led her to the bed.
"Of course it's fine. It's more than fine." He said as she lowered herself into the blanket and held his hand and squeezed it as a thank you before falling asleep.
.
.
Thanks for reading!
.
.
.