** 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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18 December 1995
Fred knew Hermione had a book to exchange, he'd heard her mention that she needed to grab it before the meeting, so when he and George left the Room of Requirement, rather than returning to the common room he went to loiter outside the library. Not for the first time did he find himself wishing that he had the Marauder's Map back.
So, loiter he did until Hermione finally appeared around the corner perhaps forty minutes before curfew.
"Don't tell me you needed something from the library?" she asked in exaggerated disbelief, spotting him as she approached.
"I've been known to crack a book," he countered, feigning insult. "Not well known, sure, but known."
And then she smiled, that easy, unbelievably beautiful smile that crinkled her nose and lit up her eyes. "I need to swap out a transfiguration text really quickly – wait for me?"
He nodded, finding it ironic that he'd been doing exactly that since she'd said hello to him in that very corridor six months prior.
She was in and out in a flash, having apparently developed a sort of shorthand with Madam Pince, and then they were walking beside one another, dawdling and looking at the Christmas decorations as they went.
"Can I show you something?" he asked, having finally worked up the courage to do so as they neared the staircases.
"Sure," she said, a hint of both curiosity and uncertainty colouring her voice.
He made an abrupt right turn and navigated until they were outside the same classroom they'd argued in after his ill-fated quidditch match. This was mostly out of convenience because that part of the castle was fairly deserted in the evening and he knew the room wasn't in use.
She stepped forward to twist the door handle when he stopped her with a hand on her wrist.
"Do you trust me?" he asked, searching her slightly startled expression.
"Not with that look on your face," she laughed. He gave her his best attempt at a withering glare, modeled after her own, and she replied more seriously, "Yes, Fred. Against the better judgement and sage advice of most everyone that has met you, I trust you."
He took the victory and raised his wand, conjuring a blindfold to appear over her eyes. He then reached out and gently clasped her hand in his, opened the door behind him, and steered her through.
oOoOoOo
Hermione thought she might faint when the black fabric appeared over her eyes and she felt his light grip on her hand. Her head was spinning, and her stomach was churning from nerves, but she didn't have much time to dwell on it because, before she knew it, she was being pulled into the empty classroom.
The first thing she noticed was the smell; the castle tended to take on an aroma around the holidays, like evergreen and ginger biscuits. That was present, but the overwhelming scent was the one she'd learned to associate with Fred himself. Warm spices – nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. Lately there'd been the faintest trace of gunpowder as well, which she was concerned to even contemplate in terms of what he and George might be creating for the shop.
As she stepped carefully through, trusting him not to run her into anything, she also noted Christmas music playing faintly in the background. Also not uncommon this time of year, but after another couple of seconds she determined that it was muggle Christmas music.
"What on earth –?"
"Shh, just one more minute."
She pressed her lips together to keep from protesting, as was her natural inclination, and allowed him to pull her into the center of the room. He then let her hand fall to her side and stepped away.
A second later Fred said, from a bit further away,"Okay, you can take off the blindfold."
Hermione brought her hands up to her face and slipped the thick band of cloth over her head, blinking against the sudden brightness as her eyes adjusted.
As beautiful as Hogwarts was around the Christmas holiday, she oftentimes found herself longing for some of the muggle traditions she'd grown up with. She had them when she visited her parents of course but, as conflicted as she might be about the sentiment, Hogwarts had become more her home than their house was. It was the place that she didn't need to filter or hide, she could just be herself.
It was for this reason that her lips parted in shock as she looked around. Electronics didn't work on the school grounds, but Fred had managed an astoundingly similar approximation to muggle Christmas lights. Floating around the ceiling of the room in a draping pattern were tiny spheres roughly the size of her thumb nail that were glowing warmly in the otherwise dark space. There were hundreds of them and, knowing that they had to be individually conjured, she was torn between being dazzled by the composite effect and thoroughly impressed by the magic behind it.
"Oh my God," Hermione murmured quietly, turning in place to see the lights ringed the entire room.
In the corner on one of the desks sat an old hand-cranked turntable with a vinyl record spinning on it. The song playing was an instrumental version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."
Then finally, standing perhaps five feet across from her in the middle of the room, was Fred. He had his hands behind his back and an uncharacteristically nervous expression on his face.
"I heard you trying to explain muggle decorations to Ginny a couple weeks ago and Lee's dad is a muggle, so he helped me figure out a conjuration spell that looked the most like the lights you were talking about and then the record I had to have mailed here, which actually took longer than I'd expected, but -"
"Fred?"
She stopped his anxious explanation with a small smile and took a step toward him.
"Yes?" he said uncertainly, staring at her as though he were afraid she might hex him.
"It's absolutely perfect." A look of relief washed over him, and his shoulders dropped several inches from where they'd been tensely coiled near his ears. "Thank you. I can't even begin… This must have taken hours, why would you go to the trouble?"
She looked around again, awed smile still in place, estimating perhaps three or four hundred of the tiny lights twinkling and glowing all around them. It's no wonder the room smelled like him, he must have spent the better part of a day in there.
"To see that look on your face."
She turned back to him and felt as though the air had been wrung from her lungs like a sponge. "Oh."
Before she could say anything more though, he extracted a small package from behind his back, wrapped neatly in red Christmas paper.
"I know I won't see you on Christmas but I wanted to give you your gift so you could take it with you."
She shrugged her shoulder and let her bag lower onto the ground before crossing the room and accepting the parcel. It was perhaps eight inches long and four wide, roughly the size of a small book.
"Thank you, it'll be the first one I open," she promised. "I have yours in my trunk, but I can give it to you tomorrow." She looked up to find his eyes already on her – something that had been happening more and more frequently.
Hermione wasn't sure when the shift had occurred, but over the past several weeks she found that every time she entered the common room, every morning when she ate breakfast in The Great Hall, every instance in which they passed one another in the corridor between classes, Fred was looking at her. And she knew that because she'd been looking at him too. Regardless of what they were doing or who was around, his face had become the one that she sought out from the crowd.
His ginger hair shone dark copper in the dim lighting, and she was close enough to count the freckles across his nose. And his eyes… if she had to pick one color to see for the rest of her life, if the entire world faded to black and white and grey, the color she'd pick would be the blue of Fred Weasley's eyes.
They were only perhaps six inches apart at that point and before she had time to process what was happening, Fred ducked his head and placed a chaste kiss on her left cheek, lingering for a just a second before drawing back to gauge her reaction. His skin was warm against hers, and she felt his breath tickle a curl near her ear. Bewildered though she was, she smiled and released a little half-sigh, allowing it to mingle with a breathless laugh.
He nodded once, like that was the response he'd been hoping for, before swallowing hard, heaving a sigh and looking about the room. The ten-minute warning chimed throughout the castle, reminding them it was nearly curfew.
"I suppose I'd best get this cleared up – wouldn't want a prefect to catch me wandering the halls after hours."
He gave her a cheeky smirk and made to walk toward the turntable in the corner, which was now crooning "White Christmas."
Her left hand was holding the gift he'd given her, but her right was free, and, in a moment of sheer Gryffindor nerve, she used it to reach out and catch the end of his tie, hauling him back around to face her. And then, without debating the ramifications, or worrying what anybody might say, or even thinking much at all, Hermione finally managed to get out of her own head and do the thing she'd been wanting to do for months.
Gripping his tie firmly in her fist she saw a glimpse of shock on his face right before she tugged it, pulled his head back down to hers, and kissed him soundly on the mouth.
Fred made a little sound of disbelief in his throat and froze as though he'd been petrified. Bravery rapidly depleting in light of his complete lack of response, Hermione was just about to pull away and flee the room, or perhaps the continent, when he fished an arm around her waist, dragged her a step closer to him, and kissed her back.
His lips slid against hers in an overwhelming cocktail of contradictions. Firm and yet somehow still soft. Confident but earnest. Wanting more but happily accepting what was being offered. It was unlike any other kiss she'd ever experienced in her life.
After a few seconds, or some other utterly indeterminate amount of time, he tore his mouth away and let his forehead rest against hers, both of them struggling to catch their breath. She finally let go of his tie and lifted her hand, which she was proud to see was only shaking a little bit, and placed it against his cheek, running her thumb lightly across the curve of his bottom lip. She was rewarded by the shiver that rolled through him in response.
He took the hand not on her lower back and raised it to cover hers before turning his head and pressing another warm kiss into the center of her palm.
Only then did he open his eyes to look at her again, astonishment on his face, and breathed out the only word that could even begin to explain her own feelings in that moment.
"Wow."
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The next morning Hermione went down to breakfast with a lilt in her step. After their kiss, Fred had quickly cleaned up the classroom and then accompanied her back to the common room, hand-in-hand. They separated just as they got to the portrait hole, apparently in agreement that they wanted to keep whatever it was between them just between them for the time being. She was entirely fine with that.
Once they were inside, she joined Harry and Ron in front of the fire, and he headed up to bed, looking back for just a second to shoot her a grin and a wink. It was all she could do to keep from smiling back like a maniac while Harry told her about his own damp encounter with Cho.
She settled at the table and poured herself a cup of coffee, not bothering to extract her books from her bag as she usually would. Her nerves wouldn't allow her to focus anyway.
Instead, Hermione simply sipped her drink and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Over the span of an hour, nerves slowly turned to unease because not only had Fred not appeared, neither had Harry. Or Ron. Or George. Or Ginny.
She'd just spotted Neville walking into the hall and started to stand so she could ask him if he'd seen the boys when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning to look up, she saw who it was and her stomach began to free-fall.
"Miss Granger," Headmaster Dumbledore said solemnly, "will you please come with me?"
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A/N: I'm participating in a quick fest this month and the fic is already posted publicly over on my AO3 under the same penname. It's a smutty/sweet Wolfstar one shot if you're interested in checking that out! (The Dog Days of Summer)