9 March 1997

"Bleeding hell, the two of you should just have your own beds at this point. They can make you little plaques."

Fred walked into the hospital wing, for the second time that month, with snow melting in his hair and a care-package from his mother in tow. This time, Ron was the one seated beside Harry's bed, though he was also clad in blue pajamas and still technically a patient himself.

Madam Pomfrey grunted something in quiet agreement before disappearing into her private quarters. Fred chuckled, setting the basket of goodies on the side table. Ron didn't waste any time on pleasantries and grabbed it, riffling through and immediately digging in.

"Hey Fred," Harry said, head still heavily bandaged over his left ear. A wry smiled flickered across his face. "Shopping for local real estate again?"

"Nah, just a messenger this time. Dad was called into work and mum is busy slowly chipping away at Fleur's will to live." He rounded the foot of the bed and flopped into the seat on Harry's other side. "Heard the game was a right bust."

"Yeah, you heard right," Harry sighed. "Cormac clipped me with a bludger and we lost to Hufflepuff; 320 to 60."

"A bludger? How did that happen? I thought McLaggen was a keeper."

"Yeah, go and tell him that."

"Brutal," Fred said, shaking his head sympathetically. "So when are the two of you getting out of here anyway?"

"We're both supposed to be released tomorrow," Ron chimed in through a mouthful of mince pie. "Dunno how a cracked skull is an overnight affair while I've been stuck here all week."

"Hermione's been making him keep up on his schoolwork," Harry explained with barely suppressed amusement as a sullen expression fell over Ron's face. Fred took a little dark pleasure in that himself. "She just ran to the library to exchange a couple books, but she should be back soon."

"Why should he care where Hermione is?" Ron asked, snorting derisively.

Harry's face went completely blank, like he'd been stunned, but Fred just leaned back and nonchalantly propped his feet on the edge of the bed. He also reminded himself not to rely on the Boy Who Lived when it came to the art of deception.

"You'll find that after you finish school you'll need hobbies to keep the mind sharp, little brother." Fred tapped his temple. "I've decided that mine is knowing where people are — Harry was just indulging me."

Ron rolled his eyes and went back to eating. "Well, she can take her bloody time. Pain in the ass witch; she keeps trying to make me talk to Lavender."

Fred momentarily gritted his teeth, but he exhaled and let it go. "As in your girlfriend Lavender? Wow, yeah; can't imagine why you'd speak to her."

"Right? The nosy swot. She never knows when to mind her own business —"

"Ron," Harry said sharply, glancing nervously at Fred.

"— if she got her own life maybe she wouldn't feel the need —"

"Ron, shut up."

"— honestly, it's just pathetic. I mean —"

"RON!"

"Alright." Fred got to his feet and stepped around the foot of the bed. In one swift motion he ripped the half-eaten pastry out of Ron's hand, tossed it onto the floor, and grabbed his brother tightly about the collar. Wide, startled eyes stared up at him and a crumb fell off Ron's upper-lip. "Watch your fucking mouth, yeah?"

"What the hell? Gerroffme!" Ron tried to shove him away, but all he managed to do was tip the chair back onto two legs so that Fred's grip became the only thing keeping him upright. "What the fuck has gotten into you? Hermione used to drive you and George batty, why are you defending her all of a sudden?"

Fred opened his mouth to reply, cursing his temper and trying to figure out a way to walk back the conversation that didn't involve obliviating his brother, but before he could speak a voice said levelly from the doorway: "Because we're dating."

All three boys turned to look in the direction that it came from and saw Hermione standing there, clutching a large, leatherbound book to her chest with a resigned, fraught expression on her face.

She looked around, examining the scene with a level eye, and then took a step closer and said slowly, "Fred and I, we're seeing one another. We have been for a while."

Fred carefully pulled Ron and his chair back to a vertical position and released his hold, stepping away and sucking in a deep breath that did exceptionally little to ease the lingering anger that he was feeling. His hands were shaking a bit and he balled them into fists at his sides.

"What? No way, you're taking the mick. You couldn't possibly be –" Ron began shaking his head, like the very notion was absurd, until he caught sight of Harry's viscerally uncomfortable expression and fell mute.

"I'm sorry, love," Fred said ruefully, looking over at Hermione, but she was shaking her head.

"It's alright." She offered a tense smile, took a few more steps forward until she was next to Fred, and set her book down on Ron's vacant bed. Then she turned to look at its missing occupant with head high and shoulders squared. There was an indomitable expression on her face and, if it were possible, he loved her a little more for it. "I'm sorry it came out like this. I've been wanting to tell you for a while, but we haven't really been speaking this term. I love Fred, I'm in love with him that is, and I know that it's – it's probably a surprise, but I hope that with time you'll come to understand why I —"

"Why you started shagging my brother, or why you felt the need to lie to me about it?"

It was eerily quiet for a moment and Fred bristled, but before he could interject Hermione fired back, eyes flashing and her tone suddenly glacial, "I never lied to you. You'd have to take smallest modicum of interest in my life to necessitate that. Choosing not to tell you something because I think you'll respond with the emotional maturity of a toddler isn't lying."

Ron scoffed and turned his attention to Fred instead, probably thinking he'd be more likely to get a rise out of him. Unfortunately, he was correct in this assessment. "I suppose I understand why you'd want to keep it a secret, probably ashamed that —"

He cut off with an indignant choking sound, eyes blown wide, and Fred realised with a sort of vague awareness that he'd drawn his wand. He rolled it deftly between his fingers, feeling the familiar ridges of the handle, and then, not breaking eye contact for even a second, he said in a low voice, "Go on, Ronniekins. Finish the sentence."

It didn't matter what Ron said. The thought – the very notion – that Fred would have any cause at all to be ashamed of Hermine, of his relationship with her, had him ready to hex his brother into a puddle and send him home to their mum in a jar.

As it stood, Ron didn't speak, and the silence in the room was overwrought, crackling with anger and anticipation.

Harry leaned forward from his pillows, wincing a little as he did so, and put his hands out with palms forward, as if speaking to an incensed animal. He glanced between the Weasleys before looking to his friend, standing both physically and metaphorically in between the two.

"Hermione," he said in a tight voice, "I think that you and Fred should leave."

"Harry, your head —" Hermione started, looking worried, but Harry offered her a weak smile that Fred thought might be intended as reassuring. Given his greyish complexion, the resulting effect was far from it.

"I'm okay, really. Go on."

She lingered for a second longer, seemingly caught in some internal war, and then nodded and picked up her book again. Ron remained silent, still obviously livid as Fred stowed his wand and made to follow her. He didn't turn around as they left, recognising that if he did, he'd very likely say or do something that he couldn't take back.

In fact, neither he nor Hermione spoke at all until they'd made it a little way down the corridor and into a side passage, sufficiently out of earshot. Fred stopped and leaned against the wall while Hermione pulled her bag off of her shoulder and tucked her book in it, movements mechanical and stiff.

"I'm sorry," he said again, running a hand through his hair. He knew that it was a pathetic apology given that they'd just potentially decimated one of her longest friendships, especially given that she'd now be left to deal with the fallout alone, but it was all he could think to say.

"It's alright, really," she sighed, dropping her bag onto the floor and grinding her palms into her eye sockets for a second before lowering them. She wasn't crying, which was a small relief. She just looked exceptionally weary. And tremendously disheartened. "Believe it or not, that went about as well as I expected."

"Really?" Fred asked, genuinely a little taken aback. "Wow. He must have been behaving worse than you let on."

She tipped her head in silent confirmation and stepped between his feet, arms twining up around his shoulders and cheek coming to rest against his chest. He wrapped an arm around her waist.

"There was a good reason that I was putting off telling him; I don't know that the exact timing or circumstance would have made much difference." She leaned back and looked up at him in question. "I am curious about what he said to set you off, though."

Fred cringed. "He was just going on about you trying to get him to speak to Lavender."

"That seems fairly innocuous…"

"It was more in the way that he said it," Fred hedged, disinclined to repeat any of what had actually transpired. He was still angry enough about the situation.

She searched his face and then nodded with a sad, shrewd smile. "I see. Well, if it was anything like the things he says when I am around, I suppose I can understand your reaction."

They lapsed silent once again. Despite all of the drama, despite his brother being a royal pain in the ass, Fred couldn't help but be a little selfish in that stolen moment. He tightened his arms around Hermione and tucked her tight against his chest again, below his chin.

It also occurred to him that, despite the tumultuousness of the situation, he never had even a split-second of doubt in their relationship, nor their ability to weather it. Even then, in the aftermath, he didn't feel anything but love and support from this woman. This fiercely protective, inexorably loyal woman.

That, more than anything, quietened him.

"So, what now?" He asked, tracing a hand down the familiar slope of her back.

"Mmmm… we stay like this for a little while. You hold me and tell me that it'll all be okay, which I objectively know that it very likely will be, and then I'll walk you to the apparition point and go to dinner."

"I'm on board for all but that last part."

She smiled fondly, rolling onto her tiptoes to brush her lips against his.

"You object to my eating dinner?"

"I object to letting you out of my sight for a single bloody moment. Cursed jewelry, poisoned drinks, rogue quidditch players, my brother acting like an absolute twat… it's a veritable deathtrap around here."

"You're not entirely wrong," Hermione admitted. "But I can handle myself. I've made it this far, haven't I?"

"I know," Fred sighed, nodding. "But I still reserve the right to worry about you."

"Likewise, darling," she murmured as his forehead came to rest against hers. She lifted a hand and traced her fingertips along his jaw before leaning in to kiss him once more. "Likewise."

oOoOoOo

After Hermione walked Fred down to the gates, settling their plans for Easter before he departed, she decided that rather than go to dinner she would try and talk to Ron again.

If she could answer a few questions, explain the how and the when of it, perhaps he would understand. Or, at the very least, begin to come to terms with things.

Hell, if nothing else she'd burn off a little lingering tension shouting at him for being a tosser.

She rounded the corner to the hospital wing when, hearing voices, she slowed and then stopped just outside the open door. Ron and Harry were the only two occupants at the moment, and it certainly wasn't Madam Pomfrey speaking.

" – understand how she could lie to me."

"She didn't lie to you," a tired voice said back, one that sounded precisely like Harry's. It also sounded like it wasn't the first time it had been said. "And really? After today, you can't possibly imagine why she might have been reluctant to tell you? Not a single guess?"

"What about Fred, then? He should have fessed up, he's my bloody brother."

"Yeah, and he cares about her. A lot. Enough not to force her into an ultimatum." There was a pause before he added, somewhat hesitantly, "She didn't exactly have the easiest time of it last year, Ron. I think that he was right not to push her."

Ron muttered something sullenly that Hermione didn't quite catch, but what Harry said next came through loud and clear.

"I know that, and I'm not trying to be insensitive about it. Neither are they. But you need to figure out a way to be okay with this, and fast. Because I can tell you with absolute certainty that they aren't going to break things off to spare your feelings."

"You really think my own brother would pick Hermione over me?"

"Honestly?" Harry quieted for another moment before answering. "Yeah, I do."

"What about you, then?" Ron asked, his tone turning bitter and resentful in a way that made her stomach churn. "Would you choose her over me too?"

"Don't ask me that," Harry shot back instantly, in a voice she'd hardly ever heard him use. It was the same that he'd employed in the Ministry that past spring; forceful and unwavering. "Don't you ever ask me that."

"Why? Because you'd pick her?"

Hermione waited with bated breath, straining to listen, but a reply never came. And it was the single loudest silence she'd ever heard in her life.