"Morning Mi, Happy Halloween," Fred greeted happily handing a cup of coffee to his flatmate.
"Morning Freddie," she smiled accepting the cup from him happily. Since she'd moved into the flat at the end of September, they'd developed a morning routine; everyday Fred would awake at seven o'clock and brew a fresh pot of coffee. Hermione would awake and follow the smell of coffee and the pair would sit together contentedly at the breakfast bar talking as they filled in a crossword from the previous day's edition of a Muggle Newspaper Hermione liked to read. When they had completed the crossword, the pair would start making breakfast together, the smell of frying bacon would awaken George if he weren't at Angelina's and his twin would come help them, if not the pair would have breakfast together, living in domestic bliss.
"Seven up is wash," Hermione told him her eye's scanning the crossword questions that laid on the counter before them; Fred scanned the question himself and nodded in agreement; the wash was the largest estuary in the UK, he picked up the muggle biro pen off the table and wrote the answer in the little squares as Hermione took a deep drink of her coffee.
"Freddie, I don't know what to do," the witch told him quietly her eyes fixed on the newspaper in front of them.
"What do you mean," he questioned.
"I didn't go back to Hogwarts," she told him.
"No, you didn't," he agreed. On September the first Hermione had been a no show on Platform nine and three quarters when they had waved Ginny off for her seventh year. Fred had found Hermione half asleep in a muggle bar hours after the train had departed and she'd begged him not to make her return to the school. He had taken her home and sent a patronus off to Hogwarts to tell the Professor McGonagall that she wouldn't be returning to the school.
"I've always prided myself on my grades, my intellect, I have no NEWT's," she told him nervously.
"Neither do I, and I'm okay," he told her.
"Fred I'm serious, what am I supposed to do with myself, with my life," she asked him.
"Anything you want to do anyone would be lucky to employ you and if you really want to gain your NEWT's sit them at the Ministry," he replied.
"But what about employment, I have no idea what I want to do," she mumbled.
"Take your time and think it over, but for today you can be my number one employee, I'm expecting the store to be busy because of the holiday and we need all the help we can get, by the way ten is Shakespeare," he told her.
"I know it is," she told him picking up the pen and filling in the name of the poet.
"With the number of books, you have by him I thought you would," he chuckled.
"I don't have that many," she told him.
"You have at least three shelves dedicated to him alone," he disagreed.
"Four and a half," she corrected blushing.
"See, and that's only one author, Mi one day you are going to be buried alive by books," he told her as he rose from his seat and began preparing breakfast.
"I have spells in place to prevent that," she told him primly, as she stood to gather the ingredients for pancakes.
"Of course, you do," he chuckled.
"I'm exhausted," Hermione moaned as she sank down on the couch in the twin's workroom.
"Today was rather busy," George chuckled as he handed her a bottle of Butterbeer.
"Still not our busiest day though," Fred told her from where he stood frowning down at a cauldron that stood atop of the workbench in front of him.
"No that was Christmas eve our opening year, by the time we closed shop we had sold out of everything," George told her.
"Everyone needed a good laugh that year," she sighed as she pulled herself off the couch and over to the workbench. "If you keep frowning your face will set that way, Freddie," she told him as she stood on her tiptoes to peer at the murky potion in the large copper cauldron.
"It isn't working," he told her distractedly.
"What's it meant to be," she asked curiously.
"I don't even know anymore, I was hoping to create mints with a metamorphic effect, but it just isn't working," he told her using his wand to vanish the potion.
"What about Polyjuice," she questioned.
"People tend not to like the taste of it," Fred told her.
"I agree but what if we could use that as a base to create a new type of sweet," she asked wandlessly summoning a biro and a pad of paper so she could scribble down ideas.
"Use it as a base," George questioned joining them at the workbench.
"We'd still have to find a way to change the flavour not to mention a way to allow one to morph their appearances," Fred added.
"How complex do you want the ability to be; a simple colour changing charm could be added to change the hair colour of a person or," Hermione trailed off her cheeks flushed.
"Or what Miss Granger," George asked his eyebrows raised.
"Have I ever told you of the first time I drank Polyjuice," she asked them her face as red as their hair.
"No," they replied together.