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I hope this chapter lives up to your expectations!

Happy reading!

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CHAPTER 26.

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"Hermione. We need to talk." Fred said.

She tried dodging him but he had held his hand in front of her.

"There's nothing to talk about Fred. At least not yet. I don't think I could look at you right now let alone talk to you." She said.

Fred took in a sharp intake of air. Every word she said was cutting so deeply that even Umbridge's evil quill paled in comparison.

Hermione really couldn't face him.

After the drama yesterday and the way she had treated him by over reacting, she was so ashamed of herself that she couldn't even look at him. She couldn't bear to see the hurt, the pain in his eyes.

So she had settled on avoiding him.

What she hadn't expected was Fred trying to get her attention. She had thought that after her screaming match last night, he would wash his hands off her and never want to speak with her again.

She knew she had to apologise, but she needed to gather some courage before that.

"That's fine. I get where you're coming from. But Mione please. I have something to say to you. Don't forgive me. But please just please listen to me, will you?" he pleaded with his eyes.

Mione. He called her Mione.

And what was that about forgiving him? He surely didn't mean that he was sorry? She should have been the one to apologise and instead here he was trying to talk to her when instead he should have given up on her.

"Fred .. I .. " She started.

He placed his large, comforting hand on her shoulder, directing her away from the bathroom.

"Please Mione. Just give me one chance. Let's go to my room or yours. Wherever you want. But please just hear me out." He said.

She nodded, numb at his request.

He really seemed desperate to talk to her and maybe just maybe in all of this, she could work up the courage to apologize for her idiocy.

They walked into Fred's room awkwardly.

None of them thought it was appropriate to just sit on the bed, given how uncomfortable both were feeling as of now.

"I'm sorry. I'm really, truly sorry Hermione. I had no idea that you would be so hurt by what I did. It was meant to be only a silly prank. I didn't mean for it to get so out of hand." He said honestly.

Hermione was crying by now.

Sure, what he had done had hurt her. But it was after all, just another prank. She shouldn't have been so affected by it.

He had done worse to her. But she had laughed it off. And the only reason she was so hurt was because she had accused him of thinking about her the thoughts she had about herself.

She had put words in his mouth. And if it wasn't for own bloody inferiority complex, she would have laughed at his prank with him.

"Hermione, please don't cry. I promise I won't do it again. Ever." He said holding her shaking shoulders with his hands.

"Oh Fred. This is terrible. I should be apologising to you for being downright horrid to you yesterday. I was not thinking. And I said so many things to you which I didn't even mean. I'm the one who's sorry, Fred." She cried.

Fred's heart went out to the distraught woman in front of her.

"I couldn't face you all day after I realised how stupid I'd been. I completely over reacted." She sobbed.

"So you're not ... Not angry at me?" Fred asked wondrously.

She shook her head.

"You don't hate me?" He asked again.

"How can I hate you Fred? I'm the one who should be hated by you." She said, looking at the floor, wringing her hands nervously, tears dropping rhythmically on the floor.

Merlin! She has it all wrong! As always. Why would I hate her? And she avoided me all day because she thought I'd want nothing to do with her. Fred almost laughed at the irony.

"Love, I could never hate you. But I'm not lying when I say that the past 24 hours have been utter hell for me thinking that you hated me. I don't think I could have lived with that." He said softly.

She gave him a watery smile. "I don't hate you. I just can't. But I can't believe you're still talking to me. I'm such a mess and the last few days have been so dramatic. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to just get over with my outbursts."

"Every outburst of yours was valid. But for someone who's so smart and supposedly the brightest witch of our age, you sure can be dense." He said teasingly.

"What do you mean?" She said as she wiped her eyes.

He came a step closer and held her face in his large hands. Cupping it gently, he rubbed his thumbs over her tear streaked path.

Looking her in the eye, without blinking and with the most conviction he could manage he said, "how could you even think that you're not beautiful? That no man would be interested in you? That anyone would do you a favour by dating you? How can you think so low of yourself? And the other women out there that you're talking about, they don't hold a candle to you."

She was crying silently now, the tears following a well made path across her cheeks.

He turned her so that his chest was facing her back and they both stood in front of the mirror. He wanted her to see herself through his eyes.

Her eyes were still lowered.

She couldn't look up yet.

He tilted her chin up with 3 of his fingers so that she looked at her reflection.

He forced her to look up and kept talking to her through the mirror.

"Yesterday, the prank I played on you, manifested only because you wanted it to manifest that way." He said.

She looked at his reflection quizzically. Not understanding what he meant by it.

"Sure I added the prank products in your system, but they were designed to feel your feelings and depending on that, the prank would unfold. I didn't want anything to happen to you that you wouldn't want for yourself. So when you got the garlic burps every time you went to kiss him, even though you physically may have wanted to kiss him, deep down, your feelings weren't really allowing it. Thus it manifested as the burp.

And the same goes for the boils. You didn't really want him to touch you. Or perhaps you weren't ready, thus he got the boils. But those boils were not meant to be painful, trust me.

The only way that those simple boils would turn painful was if the person touching you was very very attracted to you. And if you were equally attracted to the person or truly wanted him, then none of my products would have worked on you." He said.

She looked at his reflection wide eyed.

"I wasn't even planning on telling you this, because I had no idea that you would be so hurt about the prank. I thought we could laugh over it as always. Also I wasn't sure if there would be a prank to begin with. Because if you did feel for him truly, nothing would come in your way."

"But I'm telling you this now only because I want you to realise that somewhere deep down, you didn't want to kiss him and you didn't want to take things further with him. And he wasn't doing you a favour by dating you. The painful boils are proof that he indeed found you very very attractive and he was with you because he wanted to be with you."

She stood there speechless. She didn't know what to say. She had completely misinterpreted him and accused him baselessly. She hadn't even allowed him one chance at explaining himself.

"So don't give me the crap that you're plain. You're the opposite of plain. You're... You're ... Exquisite." He said as he held her delicate fingers in his and brought them closer to his lips.

She kept looking at their reflection through the mirror, glued onto her spot. Unable to move.

It was like she was putty and he was moulding her just by his words.

He gently held her fingers and kissed each one with equal reverence.

He held on to her hand and said, "You could never be just any other girl or the girl next door. Because, you're Hermione Granger. Strong, courageous and extremely loyal. You helped bring Voldemort down, woman. How can you expect yourself to be some girl next door?" He said softly as he lovingly traced the raised margins of the word 'mudblood' engraved into her arm.

He brought her carved arm up and tenderly kissed every letter as if he was paying respects to a goddess in front of him. "This word is nothing to be ashamed about. And this wound makes you beautiful exponentially. It shows what you're made of, Mione. Don't. *kiss* conceal. *kiss* it *kiss* ever. *kiss* "

She was surprised to find a few tears mingling with the kisses on the etched word.

She looked up to face him face to face and saw the most sincere expression in his misted eyes.

"You are nothing like other women or supermodels. Because you're real." He said parting her hair to one side and placing a lingering and tingly kiss below her nape.

Her entire body erupted into millions of pleasant pins and needles poking into her.

"You're kind *kiss*, you're passionate *kiss* which is so bloody sexy, did you know? *kiss* When you sit with your legs tucked under you in that oversized night suit of yours, with the top button open, which definitely is a men's night suit by the way you look so hot, hotter than any model could look in a negligee. *kiss*

And when you chew on the end of your pen while reading anything, any guy would die happy if he was the pen. *kiss* when you fall asleep grading papers, which you do very often, the way your hair fans all over your shoulders and the couch, beats any perfectly coiffed hair do. *kiss* when you've freshly showered and left your hair to dry, every wet tangled hair tells a story of it's own. *kiss*"

He had reached below her ear right now and his other hand was at her waist. She was certain that he was supporting her because she had lost the sensation in her legs long ago and the only way she was still standing was because of his hold.

"You do everything with so much vigour.*kiss* Nothing is half hearted about you. You treat all kids as your own. *kiss* You're so selfless that you even moved in with me, the last person you wanted to, only to help Ange."

He nibbled slightly on her earlobe before dropping to the cleft between her ear and jaw.

He traced the line of her jaw with simple pecks, treating her like a porcelain doll, worried that he could break her.

"If all this isn't enough to make any guy want you, A) he isn't a man or B) he should take a closer look at your eyes. Or C) if he hasn't imperiused himself by looking into your eyes yet he could take a look at those long legs and perfect feet of yours." He said in a husky voice.

With every statement, his voice kept getting lower till now he was almost whispering into her ear.

"And so if you ever, ever think about yourself the way you have been thinking till now, Merlin help you, because you'll have to answer to me."

He had circled her waist entirely with both his arms now and there was no distance between their tightly pressed bodies.

Hermione was afraid to even say a word.

She turned her head so she could look him in the eye and not at his reflection.
He was met with a red eyed, teary look.

He lowered his head to kiss her eyes one by one, gently, not minding the salty taste at all.

He kissed every possible inch of her face with a new urgency, as if trying to validate what he had just said with actions, in case she still didn't believe him.

She turned completely to face him, but her eyes were still shut, tears still spilling.

When he ran out of all skin to kiss, she slowly opened her eyes timidly.

He looked at her lovingly, saying a multitude of things with his eyes.

He sneaked a look down at her quivering lips and looked into her eyes again.

Seeing what he wanted to see, he lowered his face to claim the only unkissed part of her beautiful face.

He brought his lips to hers in a swift moment, unable to believe that he was finally doing this, kissing the woman he loved.

He opened his soul into the kiss, drowning her with his emotions. This kiss was not for his need but for her's. He needed to show her how much he wanted her, how much he loved her.

He moved his lips gently along the contour of hers, pouring in all that he had felt for her for the past weeks.

As if fuelled by his kiss, she responded after a stunned statue like state by pressing herself urgently into him and moving her lips against him in tandem.

Her hands now found their way up to his neck and she snaked her palms from his nape into his hair.

Unable to hold herself, she opened her mouth slightly at the same time when Fred's caressing tongue asked for leeway.

The gentleness of his kisses had ceased and now since Hermione was responding with equal fervour, their tongues had a mind of their own.

Only for air, they detached themselves for a split second before consuming each other again.

Their second kiss was less needy, as if what had to be acknowledged had been done.

As they finished, they stood close to each other, panting and foreheads touching.

"Fred ..." She said, voicing herself for the first time since Fred had started explaining himself.

"Sshh. Tell me something first. Did you use your usual shower gel today?" He asked.

She looked at him as if he had gone mad, but nodded nonetheless.

He grinned a wide confirmatory grin and said as he hugged her, "and yet I don't have any painful boils."

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Phew!

There!

They make-up! And how!

I held my breath throughout while writing this chapter (well not really, but you get the drift)

I know many of you were looking fwd to this chapter.

Thus I wanted it to live up to the expectations!

So please please please review and tell me how it was.

I wanted it to be just right !

Was it?

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Thanx for reading !