Chapter 7: Not Too Late

Fred backed away slowly, careful not to make a noise as he climbed the stairs to the boy's dorm, the image of Hermione's smile still clear in his mind. She said yes.

He lay back on his bed staring at the ceiling, hands on his forehead. What was this feeling in his chest? It squeezed his insides and felt like a punch in the stomach at the same time. He didn't understand it, he'd never felt like this before.

"Fred, she said yes!" George burst through the door smiling wide, bright red all over, giving Fred a start as he sat up quickly.

"She said she'll marry you?" Fred joked.

George laughed. "She's going to go out with me, to Hogsmeade this weekend." George paced the room running his hands through his hair. "I could barely get the words out when she already agreed."

The smile on George's face was starting to annoy Fred to the point he wanted to punch him to make it go away. "Is that right? Well congrates mate." He managed to say through a sneer.

George was so distracted he didn't notice Fred's tone. "Where should I take her? Where do girls like to go?" He came to a stop, turning to his twin horror struck. "I have no idea what to do…"

"I hear love motels are in now and days." Fred suggested.

George glared at him. "Yeah right, if I want a swift kick in my quaffles."

Fred chuckled. "Just take her to the Three Broom Sticks then."

George shook his head. "That's a place you hang with your chums. Hermione's special, I want to take her somewhere she'll really like."

Fred shrugged getting up from his bed and heading to the door. "I don't know mate. I'm not good at what to do during a date, my expertise lie in what to do afterwards."

"Where are you going?"

"I got stuff to do." Fred mumbled before closing the door behind him not looking at his confused brother's face. He didn't want to talk about their date a minute longer and felt if he did, he might actually end up punching George.

He decided to grab something from the kitchen as he had not been able to eat that day due to certain events. As he walked down a flight of stairs that led to a secret passage his feet suddenly became stiff. He stood paralyzed from the waist down.

"What the hell?" Fred looked down, grabbing at one of his legs trying to move it forward. The movement caused him to fall over. After a loud crash he sat confused on the floor for a few minutes before he heard footsteps walking towards him.

"Students up after hours should watch where they step." Came a familiar voice followed by a gasp. "Fred?"

"Hermione what is this?" Fred looked up at her a little annoyed and confused. His heart gave a leap as she came into the light. He wished it would stop doing that.

Hermione sat next to him waving her wand over his legs "I put a spell at the bottom of all the staircases to stop any student walking around the hall ways after hours."

"That's pretty smart." Fred couldn't help admiring her genius.

"What are you doing out? Now I'm going to have to report this to Professor McGonagall and she's going to subtract points from Gryffindor." Hermione looked disappointed.

"Ah. Come on Hermione, just act like you never saw me."

"I can't do that. I would be dishonoring the responsibility given to me as a Prefect."

"It's dishonorable to help a friend?"

"It's dishonorable to play favorites towards your house."

"Don't do it for your house, do it for me."

"I don't favor you either." Hermione glared at him and he glared back before chuckling, taking Hermione by surprise.

"There's just no winning with you is there?" He grinned shaking his head at her.

She eyed him curiously. "No there isn't." she said matter of factually.

He gave her a small smile. "Alright, do what you have to do then. Can I go now?"

Hermione stared at him before nodding and they both rose off the floor.

"I'm sure if it was George you would have let him go." Fred mumbled just loud enough for Hermione to hear him.

"What was that?" Hermione said a light blush on her cheeks.

"You heard me." Fred answered "If it was your boyfriend, you wouldn't have said anything." Fred wasn't sure why he was picking on this topic when he had left his dorm just to avoid it. Part of him thought he wouldn't believe they were together unless she said it herself.

Hermione looked completely taken back. She stuttered when she spoke. "F-first of all…George is not my boyfriend. we are going on one date." She said this with a deep blush not looking at Fred's eyes. "Secondly, my relationship with him i-if such one develops will have nothing to do with whether or not I let him off the hook for breaking rules." Hermione stated clearly.

Fred stared disbelieving at her. "Wow…you're not even going to bend the rules for your boyfriend?"

"He is not my boyfriend."

"Well why would he want to be when you won't even bend the rules for him?"

"What?"

"What do you like about him?" Fred suddenly felt like getting answers.

"I…I don't know, I just like him." Hermione again averted her eyes from his stare.

"You don't know why you like him?"

"Well I do, but it's not something I want to talk about with you." Hermione snapped.

"What's so special about him? Just because you spent a lot of time together, it could have easily been anyone else then couldn't it? If I had been there instead of him would you have fallen for me as easily as you did him?"

"I assure you Fred I would not." Hermione glared at him before turning to leave at which point Fred grabbed her wrist to hold her there, taking both her and him by surprise.

Fred had a bewildered look on his face and all too familiar déjà vu feeling coursing through him. He let her wrist go immediately.

"Sorry…" He muttered.

Hermione stared at his face as if trying to figure something out.

"Goodnight Fred." She finally said turning and walking away, still looking baffled.

Fred managed a small smile before walking back to the common room, muttering swears under his breath the whole time. What was wrong with him? He wasn't acting himself…and Hermione was all to blame for it.

That weekend could not have come fast enough as it was all George could talk about, forcing Fred to hide from him every chance he got. Fred watched from the window of the boy's dormitory as George waited for Hermione outside and they headed to Hogsmeade together.

Fred sat on his bed and flipped through a comic book Neville had left out on his bed. He couldn't read it though, as his mind was miles away. What were they doing? Was George acting his stutter clumsy self around her? Would they have fun? Would Hermione realize he wasn't the George she liked in the first place?

That last thought hit him hard. How could she not know? He was use to people not being able to tell them apart but he felt when he did finally find the right girl she would know him better than anyone. The fact that Hermione clearly did not know meant she was not the right girl for him.

Fred suddenly sat up, a realization hitting him 'excuse the cliché' like a ton of bricks. Hermione couldn't tell them apart. She had liked Fred but easily enough said yes to George not realizing that wasn't him. How could George be with a girl that couldn't tell him from his twin? George deserved better than that and as his best mate and brother it was his job to tell him before it was too late and he entered a relationship with this girl.

"It's not too late…" He said to himself before getting up and running down the stairs, through the halls and out the corridors using a secret passage that took him into Honey Dukes seller. He didn't understand it but his stomach felt a lot better, not tied up in a knot like it had felt for the past days. That assured him all the more that he was doing the right thing.

He crept quietly out of the seller and into Honey Dukes. Now to find George and Hermione, he wasn't sure where to start. George had said something about a lake. Was there a lake near Hogsmeade? Fred had never noticed one. When he was about to ask a boy in the shop about it he suddenly notice something white falling from the sky, it wasn't snow. Fred stepped outside.

"Flower petals?" He said to no one in particular. A girl nearby overheard and came up to him.

"Isn't it wonderful? A boy cast a spell on a cloud and it started raining flower petals. It was for his girlfriend, isn't that romantic?" The girl went off spinning slowly holding her hands up to catch the petals and a lot of people Fred noticed were doing the same.

There's only one person clever enough to pass something this corny off as romantic. Fred thought to himself and he went off to find that brother of his. As he crossed over a small bridge he could not remember ever being there before leading to another section of Hogsmeade he noticed a lot of people were crowding around it, when he stepped on it the bridge felt soft.

"What is this?" Fred said, again someone was there to answer him.

"A marshmallow bridge! Some guy made it for his girlfriend. This is the best kind of magic." The boy smiled taking a piece of the bridge and eating it.

"She's not his girlfriend." Fred spat shoving the boy to one side walking across the tainted bridge leading to the next breadcrumb to find George and Hermione. Fred decided to follow the crowd who seemed to be marveling at something Fred could only assume was the work of George Weasley. As he pushed his way through the crowd to the front his feet suddenly felt wet and he looked down to see he had taken a step into a giant lake, one that had never been there before in the middle of it stood a small island.

"Isn't it romantic…" Fred heard girls swoon.

"Yeah, yeah." Fred mumbled annoyed, realizing this was an illusion spell and now that he knew it. He could easily walk through it to the happy couple. With that thought Fred stepped right into the lake and kept walking as people gasped behind him. He couldn't feel the water and as his head sank under it he could still breathe easily, reassuring him that it was all an illusion.

As he made his way through the lake and onto the island he wondered if Hermione was enjoying all this. It didn't seem like stuff she would really be into.

He walked through a heavily forest area before reaching the middle of the island where he followed faint voices belonging to that boy and his girlfriend.

"I'm sorry Hermione…I thought girls liked stuff like this." Fred came to a halt behind a large tree as he heard his twin's voice. He slowly peeked from behind it to see George and Hermione siting at a small round table lite by candle light, with twinkling star like lights hovering above their head and petals falling around them.

"It's very sweet George, honestly any girl would be taken away by any of this…I guess I'm just not use to all this attention." Hermione looked down awkwardly. Fred smiled, happy he had known she wouldn't like this sort of thing.

"…But since it's something you did, I really love it." She smiled at him and Fred's smile faded.

George blushed and grinned slightly excited. "I can do stuff like this for you all the time."

"Well maybe once every few years." Hermione laughed and George beamed at her.

"You have a cute laugh." He said shyly making Hermione blush. Fred rolled his eyes, he always thought Hermione's laugh was cute. He would have told her that sooner if he'd know it would make her blush.

"It's horrid." Hermione said shaking her head. "I snort if I laugh too much."

"Really?" George looked excited. "I'd like to see that."

"No you wouldn't, its completely unlady like."

"Who cares about that. Come on snort for me." George let out a convincing pig snort. "Just like that. See?"

Hermione laughed. "No." she managed to say between giggles.

"Ok, ok, but I got a joke for you." George grinned. "A mushroom walks into a bar…"

Hermione smiled at George's attempt to get her to snort. "Ok?"

"…And the bartender says 'We don't serve your kind here.' and the mushroom says – 'Why not? I'm a fungi!' Get it?" George leaned in eagerly. Hermione nodded.

"Very amusing." She teased keeping her lips together trying not to laugh.

George rolled his eyes and grinned, loving the challenge she was giving him. "Alright, I got another one.

A man walks into a bar with a dog.

The bartender says, "Hey buddy, can't you read that sign? It says no dogs allowed! Get that mutt out of here!"

The man replies, "No, I can't read the sign - I'm blind, and this is my seeing eye dog."

The bartender is embarrassed and gives the man a beer on the house.

Later that day, the guy is telling his friend about it: "I told him I was blind and I got a free beer!"

The friend then takes his dog into the bar and sits down, and the bartender says, "The sign says no dogs allowed! You'll have to leave!"

The friend says, "Sorry, I can't see the sign because I'm blind, and this is my seeing eye dog."

The bartender replies, "Since when do they give out Chihuahuas as seeing eye dogs?"

The man says, "They gave me a Chihuahua?"

George exclaimed the last part so enthusiastically Hermione busted out laughing letting out a loud snort to her embarrassment making George fall back laughing.

"Don't laugh!" Hermione managed accidentally snorting again.

"I can't help it." George tried to calm down. "That's the cutest snort ever!"

Hermione shook her head trying not to smile. "Well you'll never hear it again."

"Noooo…you can't take that away from me." George pouted. "Now I need to hear it all the time, at least once a day!"

"Why?"

"Because it's something you won't share with anyone else…so you have to share it with me. Ok?" George's hopeful expression made Hermione blush and she nodded averting her eyes and moving a strand of hair behind her ear making George smile.

Fred stared at them for a long while, the twisted sinking feeling returning to his stomach. Why was he there? Maybe Hermione did fall for him first but she was here now and she was happy and laughing with someone who wasn't him. Someone he loved above anyone else and wanted to be happy. Fred was not about to tear that apart. He gave a half smile, sighed and walked away. He had done what he wanted to do since the beginning, give George a chance to show Hermione what a great guy he was…and he had done exactly that.

No one but himself knew his feelings for her and no one ever would. Feelings come and go and he hoped this one would leave as quickly as it had come.

A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long to come out I had a lot of stuff going on this week but I wont bore you with that, I hope you enjoy it all the same. Please leave reviews! I really appreciate them and they inspire me to write faster knowing how people feel about the story :)