** 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.**
oOoOoOo
31 December 1995
It was New Year's Eve and Hermione was sitting on the sofa at the edge of their small party, making a list of the books she wanted to add to her brand-new portable library when she arrived back at school.
Tonks and Remus had shown up, as well as Kingsley and Moody. They were all talking to Arthur, who'd been newly released from the hospital and was in surprisingly good spirits. Harry and Sirius, on the other hand, were both sulking a bit with the end of the winter holiday in sight and Snape's occlumency tutelage looming.
She glanced across the crowded room to see Fred speaking in hushed tones to George, heads together and standing near the fireplace. They'd spent the week after Christmas touring storefronts and meeting with suppliers, and she hadn't seen much of him as a result. Though he had taken the time to thank her for the business cards she'd had made as his Christmas gift from her, commenting that they'd come in especially handy during their professional dealings.
As if he could feel her eyes on him, Fred turned his head and looked over at where she was sitting.
He smiled, but there was something else in his expression that she couldn't quite decipher. Something a little bit more weighted than usual, though certainly not negative in disposition.
"Alright, alright, it's nearly midnight!" Arthur called out, glancing at the clock on the mantel and interrupting her pondering.
Hermione set her parchment aside and stood, accepting a small glass of champagne from Mrs. Weasley. They began the countdown and, in a matter of seconds, 1995 turned to 1996.
Hermione hugged Harry, Ron and Ginny, and laughed as the twins dashed to their mother's side, smooching her loudly and dramatically on either cheek before she had a chance to kiss her husband.
A few moments passed as everyone chatted and ruminated on their resolutions and the year to come. Harry and Sirius were the first to go to bed, with Mad-Eye taking his leave shortly after. After they left, Hermione settled back into her corner, sipping from her glass and reveling in the moment, however fleeting it might be.
She'd always been fond of New Year's; she knew it was arbitrary really, just a random point at which they collectively changed the final number or two when writing the date, but still it held a sort of nebulous sense of promise. A time for new beginnings.
Fred and George excused themselves to bed and, as Fred walked past her toward the stairs, a small scrap of parchment drifted into her lap. Glancing around, she saw nobody had noticed and, practically vibrating with curiosity, she picked it up and unfolded it.
Scrawled in his now-familiar handwriting was a brief note, just two lines:
Second floor drawing room
Are you in or out?
oOoOoOo
Having grown up in a family that was, for lack of a better term, poor, Fred Weasley learned early on not to ask for the things that he wanted. He'd come to understand, as had most of his siblings, that doing so didn't mean getting those things. It just meant seeing a heartbroken look on his mum's face, or a flash of guilt on his father's.
He went so far as to pride himself on his ability to purposefully not desire things that he couldn't attain or create himself.
That said, when Hermione stepped into the room, the moonlight from the window casting pale shadows across her face, he wanted her in a way that he'd never wanted anything in his life. He'd give every galleon he had to his name, every patent and product idea he'd slaved over, the very shirt off his back, just to see her look at him the way that she was looking at him then. She'd be worth all of it.
Hell, she was worth more.
He swallowed hard as the door clicked shut behind her, drowning out the sound of voices drifting up from below.
"Sorry, it took me a minute to sneak away," she said, nervously shuffling perhaps ten feet across the room from him. She was wearing a deep blue jumper and her hair was half-pulled onto her head, exposing a stretch of pale skin below her throat that made his breath catch.
"S'okay," he managed.
She took a breath and seemed to steady herself before crossing the space. In five paces, she was in front of him, close enough that she had to angle her head up to see his face. But he didn't reach out yet, didn't touch her. A part of him was afraid that the whole scene might disappear if he did, vanish in a puff of smoke.
"I'm in," she finally said, a small crinkle appearing between her brows. Her voice was firm though, certain. "I know that the timing isn't ideal and you're busy trying to get the shop off the ground and I have OWLs and it seems like the whole bloody world is determined to burn around us, but I want to give it a shot. I want to give us a shot. Because Fred, for whatever reason when I'm with you, all the screwed-up things in our lives don't seem quite so screwed-up."
He let out a heavy sigh and finally reached forward, twining his fingers with hers and slipping them into the gaps between his knuckles that, by all accounts, may as well have been made for them. She glanced down at their hands and a smile pulled up the corner of her mouth, smoothed the nervous crease on her forehead. He circled his thumb lightly on the back of her palm and was rewarded with a quiet hum of contentment.
"Hermione, right now I don't much care what happens to the rest of the world. Let it burn."
She started to laugh before he darted forward and captured the sound with a kiss, leaning down and pressing his lips steadfastly to hers. That was the third time that Fred kissed Hermione, and the last that they'd manage to keep track of.
The first had been built on weeks, months, of watching and wanting her. The equivalent of a dam breaking.
The second was something they'd both needed, clung to, because, as she'd so astutely put it, their lives were in fact pretty screwed up.
This kiss, though… this one was different from both of those. This one was eager and happy and hopeful, far more concerned with the possibilities of the future than the innumerable threats and problems in their present.
For the first time, her lips parted against his and she breathed a sigh into his mouth that had him hoping she couldn't feel quite how much that particular sensation affected him. But it was the tentative brush of her tongue against his, that made him conclude inwardly that if he were to die on the spot, drop dead right at that moment, he would do so a happy man.
She pulled her hand from his grip and brought her arms up to loop around his neck, holding him to her and rolling onto her tiptoes. One small fist wound tightly into the hair on the back of his head, and he couldn't help but groan, grinning against her lips when she quietly gasped at the sound. His arms wrapped securely around her waist in turn, not in any rush to pull away himself.
Then the two of them well and truly snogged, like the smitten, reckless teenagers that they should have been.
Until their lips were swollen, and they were both out of breath.
Until the taste of her had nearly driven him to madness.
Until the zipper on his trousers became distinctly uncomfortable.
Finally they broke apart, instead leaning into one another so her cheek rested against his chest and his chin brushed the curls on the top of her head. One of his hands lay on her hip while the other trailed lightly up and down her spine, along the small of her back. She exhaled a quiet whimper as he held her that nearly made him combust.
"I do have one request," she finally said after a moment, still a little out of breath.
Anything. She could have anything. She could have the still-beating heart from his chest, he'd just need a moment to grab a knife.
"What's that?" he asked.
Hermione pulled back and looked up at him, searching his face. She suddenly seemed anxious.
"I don't want to tell anyone. Not yet. Not… I'm not embarrassed or anything like that, not in the slightest, but right now this is ours. Just ours. The minute everyone else knows, it won't be ours anymore; there will be opinions and jokes and pre-conceived notions, and your mum might not be keen on us staying here together, and I just… I just want a little time for us, before all of that."
"That's fine," he said quickly, a little relieved himself. The year prior he'd seen her change the way she carried herself when she knew everyone thought she was with Harry, when she was with Viktor. Though she acted like the attention hadn't gotten to her, and perhaps it truly hadn't, it was impossible not to let that sort of thing shape your perception, your actions, even just a little bit.
If she wanted time to explore them outside of all of that, he'd happily give it to her.
She rolled onto her toes to kiss him again until he started chuckling against her lips, at which point she drew back and looked up at him with her head cocked.
"What's so funny?" she asked, searching his face.
"I was just wondering which of us was going to obliviate George."
oOoOoOo
A/N: And that concludes part one of our tale!
The next chapter will have a few important disclaimers and author's notes, so make sure that you check those out.