"You don't happen to know anything about delaying the effects of a potion, do you?"
Hermione and Fred were set up at a table in the furthest reaches of the library, sitting across from one another and, until that moment, working in silent company on their individual projects. These evenings had come to be some of her favorite; the Hogwarts library had always been a haven to Hermione, the place she could go when she needed to solve a problem, or even just to be somewhere familiar and comforting. And she realized the first time he met her there to study that Fred gave her that same sort of feeling.
She absently held up a finger, finishing the translation on a line of Elder Futhark she was pouring over, before looking up. "What was that?"
Fred smiled warmly at her. He patiently repeated his question and she put her hands out and wiggled her fingers, motioning for him to give her his notes.
She scanned his somewhat messy scrawl for several minutes. It looked like they were trying to find a way to delay the effects of their Snackbox products so that, rather than spontaneously vomiting or bleeding from the nose, one could take it before class instead. Much less conspicuous that way. While she didn't approve of the intention, the complexity of the magic behind it was rather striking.
"Mmm," she hummed victoriously when she finally figured it out. Fred made a disbelieving noise.
"No," he said, shaking his head with a mildly dismayed expression. "No way! I've been staring at that piece of parchment for two days. You can't possibly have figured out the problem in less than five minutes!"
"Okay, fine. I didn't figure out the problem."
"Really?"
"No, of course I figured out the problem." Hermione grabbed the product formula and came around to his side of the table, putting it in front of him and leaning over his shoulder. "See here how you're using fresh jewelweed? That serves as the catalyst for the other active ingredients to take effect. If you were to use stewed jewelweed, it should theoretically delay that reaction. You'll have to toy with the quantity though, so it doesn't affect the potency. And you should stew it yourself, so you have more control over the finished product. Jarred jewelweed is rubbish anyway."
She glanced down to find Fred staring at her with an indecipherable expression, eyes squinted.
"What?"
"You're really quite clever, you know that?"
Hermione grinned, having heard variations of that sentiment for pretty much her whole life.
"So I've been told," she laughed, dipping her head to kiss him while her hair fell in a curtain around them. "Do you have any other projects in need of my astonishing intellect?"
"Weren't you working on ancient runes?" Fred asked uncertainly, eyeing her notes across from them. Understandable as she had a history of responding poorly when interrupted.
"Elder Futhark has been around for over 1,200 years, it'll be just as tedious to translate an hour from now."
Fred hesitated for a moment. "Oh, alright here."
He reached into his bag and grabbed a folder with several other merchandise plans in it and laid them in front of her. "These are all unfinished. Some of them have been wasting away in here since summer."
Hermione absentmindedly sank onto the very edge of his chair, eyes already locked in and flying across the pages. Fred shuffled over a bit, looping an arm securely around her waist.
"Okay, so with this one, you're using a variant of the levitation charm, but what if you did more of a directed propulsion…"