** This is a series of drabbles, ficlets and one shots following our dear Fred and Hermione from June of 1995 (shortly before the third task of the Triwizard Tournament) to an as-of-yet undetermined point post-war.**
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A/N: Another shorter one, but I promise I'll make it up to you next chapter!
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28 July 1995
"Thanks Mrs. Weasley!" Hermione repeated again in the direction of the kitchen as she headed up the stairs of Grimmauld Place, very carefully stepping around the curtained portrait of Mrs. Black. The Weasley matriarch had just listed, in detail, all of the many objects and pieces of furniture within the house that she shouldn't touch.
Given that the list was fairly exhaustive, Hermione vowed to simply not touch anything she hadn't brought herself.
Trudging up the stairs with her trunk in tow, she wondered at the quiet in the creaky old house, so unlike The Burrow. Mrs. Weasley, who had retrieved her from her parent's home, had said Ron and Ginny were helping Arthur collect a few more things from their house as they'd all be spending the rest of the summer at headquarters in Islington. Percy wasn't there, though she got rather emotional when Hermione asked after him, and the twins were presumably rattling around somewhere.
In addition to her cautionary notes about the house, she had also thoroughly warned Hermione against accepting any sort of edible item from the two of them. It had apparently been a busy few weeks for research and development.
Hermione couldn't quite put her finger on the flutter in her stomach at the prospect of seeing Fred again, but flutter it did, nonetheless. She wouldn't admit it to anyone, but their conversation by the lake at the end of the year had replayed on a loop in her head over and over after she'd returned to her parent's home and crafted her story about the school year.
Although that wasn't the part that she was reticent to confess; no, that had far more to do with her dwelling on the sensation of his hand on hers. Shivering to herself even now, she opened the door that she thought was meant to be her room and ran smack into the man in question.
Hermione swore that she nearly swallowed her tongue because not only had she just walked in on Fred unannounced, she had done so while he was wearing nothing but a towel and standing at the washroom sink, holding a razor with half of his face soaped.
"Oh my – sorry!" she blurted loudly, directing her gaze first at the floor, then at the wall, and finally at the ceiling in rapid secession. "I thought your mum said second on the left."
Fred, good-humored as he was, simply laughed. "Well, hello to you too."
Between her periphery and the glimpse she'd gotten, it stood to reason that he wouldn't be in any hurry to cover up. There certainly wasn't anything to be ashamed of.
Towel slung low around his hips, he had the faintest dusting of hair across his chest and another that started below his navel and continued down. And down. And then down some more, before disappearing beneath the light blue terrycloth. He was also sporting the lean musculature that teenage boys seemed to favor, and it was doing bizarre things to both her body and her brain.
"Why don't you – I'm just going to – we can catch up later," she stuttered in a flurry of words, backing out of the room with her eyes still cast upward and practically tripping over her luggage in the process. "This one then?"
Hermione gestured vaguely in the direction of the room that was second on the right and saw him nod his head in confirmation, a cat-like grin still plastered on his face. She turned and half-ran through the indicated doorway, nearly dislocating her shoulder as she yanked her trunk in behind her. She then slammed the door shut and sank backward against it, hands clapped over her mouth and cheeks positively on fire.
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"Was that Hermione I heard?" George asked from the bed as his brother stepped into their room, hair still wet from his shower. He was busily making notes on the formula for Canary Creams but looked up when he didn't get a response to see that Fred had a stupid smile on his face. "All right there, Freddie?"
"Oh, I've never been better," he finally said, voice a little dreamy as he dug a pair of shorts out of their recently de-doxified wardrobe. "Georgie, old boy, I think it's going to be a very interesting year."