Hello guys! I'm updating early so I can take a few days to myself this weekend. It's been a rough couple weeks, and for full transparency, I didn't proofread this because I'm just simply too exhausted to do that at the moment. This is the last full chapter I have ready for this one, so it may take some time before I post again. I'll try to post another chapter next week, but no promises. I appreciate you all!
ShamelesslyObsessed: It is horrible, isn't it? She'll get there eventually. Thank you for reviewing and I'm glad you're liking everything so far.
Bookcozy: My social anxiety could not handle going one by one, believe me. It adds to the drama though and that's what I'm here for. Ron is just…ew right now. He always was a bit shallow though, and Harry was always too awkward to say anything. Harry is so awkward in general LOL. Also, Fred is my favorite to write. He is so unproblematic most of the time — he's here for the good vibes only. Swoony George is incoming.
Chapter Five
Hermione hadn't heard from George or Ron in the days after they'd received their letters.
Not that she had any idea what to say to either one of them anyway. She'd debated on several occasions just going over to Grimmauld Place and speaking with Ron, but what was there to say? There was nothing she could do about the law, and that wasn't going to change just because she felt guilty that she'd been paired with his brother.
His older brother, who was, as far as she could tell, more different from her than anyone else she'd ever met. She didn't understand what they could have possibly seen in those tests that would give the Ministry the impression that the two of them could work. She'd never once gotten the impression that she and George would work well as a couple. She'd never even considered him as a romantic interest at all, not when she'd been too busy pining after Ron.
He was everything her opposite.
He broke rules for the fun of doing so….she only broke them if it was absolutely necessary. He found joy in pranking others, in laughing at their expense…she despised everything about that. He'd not even finished school, not caring at all about academia or O.W.L. scores…she'd been disappointed when she'd gotten an E in Defense (her only E and she was still never going to get over it). She'd never even seen the man read a book — though she supposed neither had Ron.
Of course, if she thought a little harder, then she would agree that he was ambitious; he couldn't open his own business if he weren't. He was certainly dedicated, as he worked a great deal. He was brave, he didn't care about blood status, he was her…friend. They weren't close by any means, but he was kind to her for the most part. He'd been even nicer since the battle, his gratitude for the role she'd played in saving Fred spilling over into their friendship.
Aside from that, she really didn't know him well enough to — to consider this entire thing a good idea. Now she was expected to marry him? To have children with him — which, of course, meant that she would have to…
The very thought of it gave her a great deal of anxiety. He was attractive, certainly. None of the Weasley children were ugly, but that didn't help her at all. She still didn't love him, and the idea of having children with him felt more awkward than anything else.
The entire thing felt so impossibly absurd, and she had no idea what to do, and ignoring the fact that they were supposed to marry had been easier than speaking with him.
She assumed that she'd have to see George eventually — they were betrothed, weren't they? It wasn't as if she could ignore him forever. And she didn't want to end up the sort of couple that never even spoke or looked at each other. And if they…did have children, he'd be part of her life forever, no matter what happened with the law after the fact. In a more intimate way than he would have been otherwise.
So, no, she couldn't avoid him, though she was fairly certain they'd both been doing a good job at trying. But, truthfully, she wasn't very good at ignoring her problems, preferring to face them head on, and she needed a break from looking at the documents in front of her. The idea of speaking to George gave her a great deal of anxiety, but it was better than upsetting herself by speaking with Ron. And she couldn't avoid speaking to him until Sunday when everyone and their fiances were supposed to be coming to visit. It would be horribly awkward to sit next to him when they hadn't spoken a word to each other since they'd gotten their letters.
So by Tuesday morning, she'd forced herself to pluck up the courage to go to the shop and work through whatever awkward, horrible tension was sure to be present between them.
She went about her morning routine — wake, make her bed, get dressed, run, shower — before she chose to pace back and forth across her room anxiously, wondering exactly what she was supposed to say or how awkward the conversation was going to be.
But she was a Gryffindor, wasn't she? This was not the worst she'd ever had to face — she needed to pull herself together and get it over with. Like ripping off a Band-Aid; quick and painful.
By the time she'd convinced herself that she could do this, Mrs. Weasley had made lunch, which she'd been forced to eat, and then she hadn't bothered saying where she was going before she walked out the door around one-thirty.
The woman was far too excited for her to become a Weasley and she had no idea how to respond to that. It still felt sort of surreal.
She apparated to the apparition point in Diagon Alley, and it took her a moment to catch her bearings before she managed to make the short walk to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. The Alley was teeming with people once again, laughter and loud chatter and the excited squealing of children could be heard from every direction, and the shop fronts had been repaired and re-opened for the most part. Some were still vacant — likely owners who had been killed in the war — but Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor and Olivander's had reopened and were drawing large crowds.
Even with the other shops open and lively, WWW was an assault to the senses. The noises from inside the shop could be heard even with the door closed, the orange and maroon entrance wildly painful to the eyes, and the left hand window was full of new and popular items, all making their own sort of noise.
She had positively no idea how the twins managed to work in such chaos, but that was before she entered. Upon entering it was ten times worse — the shop was packed and so loud that she didn't even hear the bell chime when she'd entered. She had to dodge a group of children racing past her, and nearly sent boxes of Puking Pastilles falling to the ground. There were a group of giggling girls near the array of pink WonderWitch items near the window, cooing over the Pygmy Puffs.
She'd known them successful, but she almost couldn't move within the shop without touching another person. Perhaps coming to the shop had been a bad idea…they were clearly very busy, even at this hour, and she could have owled.
Yes, she definitely should have owled. But it was fine because no one had seen her so she could just turn around and —
"Hermione?"
She deserved that for being a coward.
She sighed to herself and turned to face whatever twin had seen her. It was Fred, carrying a large stack of Nosebleed Nougats from the back room. He set them down on the empty shelf a few feet in front of her, and turned to look at her with a grin.
"Are you here looking for something to force feed our dear Ronnie?" he said cheerily. "The most obvious choice would be a Puking Pastille, but I'd really recommend the Flatulent Fudge. Might be worth a go to give him at dinner on Sunday."
Hermione blinked at him.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"New item," he said, grinning widely. "Part of the Skiving Snackbox line. Course we wouldn't give him the antidote — what fun would there be in that?"
"I thought the Skiving Snackboxes were supposed to get people out of class," she said in confusion. "How does being flatulent do that?"
"You think any professor wants to be teaching a bloke who has uncontrollable gas?"
It took her a long moment to come up with a response to this, which appeared to amuse him a great deal.
"How do the two of you even think of these things?" she said eventually.
"We've skipped a lot of classes, my dearest Hermione —"
"So you're saying that you used uncontrollable gas as an excuse to get out of class?"
"Not me," he said, affronted. "George did. He had far too many beans at breakfast —"
"These are really the sorts of things I don't need to know," she said hastily before he could continue.
"You sound just like Snape," he said with a sigh. "Well, if you aren't here for Flatulent Fudge then what are you — OI! Put those fireworks back or I'll light one off your thieving head!"
"Fred!" Hermione said, watching a young boy take the fireworks out of his pocket and chuck them back into the bin, running in the other direction. "Is that how you talk to your patrons? That's horrible customer service!"
"Yeah, well, you try and keep these thieving brats from taking all of our things," he said dismissively. "They've no respect for the artistry behind the products."
She chose not to respond to that.
"I came to talk to George, but you're clearly busy, so I can just —"
Fred grinned widely, throwing an arm over her shoulders and leading her back toward the till where Verity had a long line of customers.
"Nonsense, Herms —"
"No."
"Georgie is in the workshop trying to restock. Feel free to go down there. I've got the chaos up here all under control."
She gave him a doubtful look.
"I'm having a hard time believing that," she said, looking back at the chaos behind them.
"Off you go," he said, ignoring her completely. "Down the hall, last door on the right."
He was gone before she could even begin to say anything else, and she couldn't very well just stand there awkwardly behind the till when there was a long line of customers and no one at the other empty, unmanned register.
She followed the hallway back into a section she was unfamiliar with. There was a curtained door off to her right that she knew housed their Defense Against the Dark Arts items that she imagined they sold very rarely now. The next door she assumed was their office, though she couldn't be entirely sure, another that opened to stairs leading upstairs that she assumed went up to their flat.
When she reached the very last door, she paused. It was open, but George was facing away from her, leaning over the workbench in the center of the room and carefully piping some sort of chocolate into molds in front of him. The room was large and spacious, three tables taking up the space. One large table lined the back wall and was scattered with papers and discarded quills and inkwells. The entire wall above it had pinned parchments with lines and lines of scribbled words and crude drawings of their products. Clearly, a space they used to brainstorm ideas for products. The wall toward the right was filled with shelving that contained vials and jars of potions ingredients. The wall to the left contained a small table next to a window that faced toward the alley behind the shop that remained perpetually open with stacks of owl orders that still needed to be filled and sent out.
The table in the center that George was currently hunched over was the largest in the room, one side had several cauldrons steaming and bubbling, the other was the area that George was currently using to prepare and package whatever he was currently working on.
She watched him work for a second, his concentration clearly zeroed in on what he was doing in front of him, before she knocked on the door three times. To her surprise, he huffed in annoyance.
"Fred, you're making me feel like I took one of these damned candies," he snapped without looking at her. "I can't make these any faster, so tell Eugene that if he needs a migraine so badly that he can have you breathing down his neck for free."
Hermione pursed her lips to keep from laughing, and said, "It's Hermione."
George jerked in surprise, whirling around to look at her. He swore viciously when he knocked the table behind him by mistake, sending one of the cauldrons toppling over, and the potion within it went spilling over the table and onto the floor.
"Oh, George, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you!" she said immediately, rushing forward to try and somehow help with the mess though she had no idea what the potion even was.
George didn't appear altogether concerned by it. He merely sighed as if it was the best thing he'd expected to happen to him that day, and stared at the spilled potion for several seconds before he vanished it with a wave of his hand.
"Don't worry about it," he said, ignoring the surprise on her face at the show of wandless magic. "It was my fault. I thought it was Fred."
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yeah, I got that," she said. "Who's Eugene?"
There was an awkward sort of tension developing between them now, but maybe if she kept the entire thing light then she could pretend it wasn't there at all.
"A regular," he said. "He's eight, but he's got a sister who's ten years older than him. He doesn't like her boyfriend and he thinks if he can sneak him enough Ton-Tongue Toffees that she'll realize that he's…icky."
"Icky," she repeated. George grinned and raised his hands in placation.
"His words, not mine," he said. "Though I do respect his dedication."
"Of course you do," she said, crossing her arms awkwardly across her chest.
It was as awkward as she'd imagined, but she was at least grateful for the fact that George appeared equally at a loss for what to do.
He cleared his throat and raised a pointed eyebrow.
"You can come in, you know," he said, amusement beginning to take the place of the awkwardness. "We keep the explosives down the hall."
"Ha ha," she said sarcastically, drawing a laugh from him. She couldn't stand in the door awkwardly forever, so she took several steps into the room and walked around, looking at everything that wasn't him in an attempt to ignore the reason she was here. It was chaos, but she assumed that the twins understood whatever system they had in terms of organizing. She turned to face him again, nodding at the chocolate molds he'd been working with. "What are you working on?"
"Milk Chocolate Migraines," he said. "Causes migraines."
She eyed them carefully, careful to keep every one of her extremities away from the product on the table. He coughed to hide his amusement at this, but she ignored him.
"They look like Honeydukes chocolate," she said.
"That's the idea," he said. "The boxes do too. Bit less suspicious that way — they think they're eating chocolate and end up with a splitting migraine instead."
"Is it a charm or a potion?" she said.
"Acromantula Venom that's offset by a timed Pain Extraction Charm."
She looked up at him in confusion.
"I — what?"
"The chocolate has a small amount of Acromantula venom in it," he explained. "Eat it and a migraine is felt within minutes. The venom is largely harmless other than a migraine and nausea. We overlay the Pain Extraction Charm to keep the migraine more manageable until it fades. Time it at about the 4 minute mark, and they'll have a splitting headache for at least an hour until the charm causes it to fade completely."
She blinked at him in surprise.
She'd known he wasn't stupid, but there was a great deal of theory that would have to go into coming up with a solution like that, and then somehow figuring out how to expand the charm enough to lie dormant until a certain time period. Not to mention to get it to still work on a human when it was being used on an inanimate object beforehand.
She shouldn't have been entirely surprised. Their Canary Creams were the same way. A transfiguration spell typically directed at a person, but applied to a dessert instead and somehow being set off upon ingestion. They were clearly good at manipulating the practical applications of a spell to fit their needs, but she was somehow still surprised anyway.
"That's — how long did it take you to…"
"A few weeks," he said, seeming to understand what she was asking. "Ended up with a migraine for ages until we figured out how to manipulate the spell and time it just right —"
"You and Fred test them all yourselves, don't you?"
He smirked at her.
"Not worried about some precious first-year, are you?"
She rolled her eyes, straightening to give him a hard look.
"I wasn't," she said primly. "I had assumed that the two of you had since found other people to manipulate into testing your products —"
"We didn't manipulate them!" he said indignantly.
She gave him a deadpan look.
"Really?" she said, her voice dripping with disbelief. "So you didn't pick first-years specifically because they were too naive and impressionable to know what questions to ask? Or because they didn't know you and Fred well enough to know what sort of debauchery you get up to?"
He snorted.
"It was a Fainting Fancy, there was no debauchery," he said. "Though I suppose I'll concede the rest of it. We did pay them, you know."
"You could have paid fifth-year students too," she snorted. "Though, I suppose you couldn't find anyone that old willing to test them for you. Wisdom grows with age, I find."
George rolled his eyes.
"Well, there's nothing you could do now for the precious first years," he said, simply to get a rise out of her. They put ads in the paper when they needed testers now, and they were all of age. "Can't give me detention outside of school, now can you?"
Hermione raised an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms across her chest, tapping her foot in irritation. He'd mostly found her annoying in school, but now that she couldn't give him detention or take House points, he sort of found her irritation to be quite charming.
"No, but I can still owl your mother," she said pointedly.
He paused for a long moment, narrowing his eyes in her in consideration.
"Fair enough," he said. "But let's save that for something horrid — like when I burn our house down trying to invent new fireworks."
"I — what?" She said, horrified. "You are not inventing fireworks inside a house. What's wrong with this place?"
"Fire hazard," he said with a smirk, pointing out all the papers in the room.
They'd charmed the room far before as they'd had numerous accidents in here, but Hermione didn't know that. And there was something very amusing about teasing her — she was horribly uptight, but she was witty and he enjoyed that.
"Oh yes, how could I have not realized?" she said sarcastically. "Everything in here is basically kindling. The house is far less important."
He grinned at her, and gave her a pointed look.
"You react too easily, you know," he said. "What are you —"
"GEORGE, STOP SNOGGING GRANGER AND GET OUT HERE! EUGENE'S RELEASED ALL THE PYGMY PUFFS AND THEY'VE STARTED CHEWING ALL OF THE WET START FIREWORKS! IT'S A BLOODY WAR ZONE OUT HERE! "
George squeezed the bridge of his nose, hoping for some level of patience. It had been a long day already, and Eugene had caused a handful of problems as it was. He was so used to whizzing and whirring and bangs from the sales floor that he hadn't even paid attention to the fact that the noises had gotten louder.
He eyed Hermione hesitantly.
"Go," she said, waving him off. "I can come back. I got distracted with the migraines —"
"No, it's fine, Granger," he said. "Just stay right here — you already came over here, and we can't avoid the conversation forever. I'll be back in a bit."
She chewed on her lip, but nodded hesitantly. He was gone before she could even regret agreeing, but at least now she could think of something that she wanted to say that wasn't 'what the hell are we supposed to do now?'
The silence of the room made the chaos outside it far worse. She'd not noticed when she'd been talking to him, too wrapped up in her indignation for the first-years he'd bullied into testing his products. Now that she was paying attention though, the screaming did sound more chaotic, though she could hear some people laughing loudly despite it. And the banging and whizzing had to be near deafening out there, though it was muted some this far back from the floor.
After five minutes passed and it didn't sound like the chaos was any closer to ending, she started pacing again. The nerves were coming back now that she was sitting in silence, and she'd never operated very well when she was idle — too much time for her overactive, overachieving mind to think.
She stopped in front of the owl order table and eyed the forms scattered across the table. They were mostly inconspicuous with a magenta and orange WWW logo in the corner and their products listed out alphabetically. The table was as much a disaster zone as the rest of the room, but considering the success of their business, she assumed that Fred and George understood the chaos in a way that she didn't.
Even still, she couldn't help herself from straightening a few of the forms. It was clear they'd originally had an organizational system — the owls dropped the completed forms in through the window and they had two separate in-trays to hold the forms: one for incomplete orders and one for completed ones. Somehow, the forms had all gotten mixed across the table, but she could tell what ones had been fulfilled already because they'd put boxes at the bottom that they could mark once they'd completed the order.
She couldn't stop herself from organizing the table again. It just simply wasn't in her nature to ignore clutter, and she didn't even consider if either of the twins would be irritated with her for touching things she probably shouldn't be before she started going through the stacks and stacks of forms in front of her, separating them out into the proper trays with barely a thought.
It was hard to ignore how many forms they had still unfulfilled, and she recalled the chaos when she'd walked in just as clearly as she did now. George had looked exhausted when she'd come in here, and she didn't imagine he'd have been in the workshop rather than on the floor unless they were having difficulty keeping things on the shelves for long enough.
They were clearly overwhelmed, and she was bored, so she moved over to the shelves with Potions ingredients instead of forcing herself to sit and wait. She avoided the table they used for brainstorming on principle — she was familiar with the chaos of writing down her ideas and theories and there was very often a pattern to the whirlwind of parchment and books that no one but her would understand. She assumed the twins were the same, so she left them as they were and focused on the things she could organize.
The shelves were built into the wall to save space in the chaotic room, and she had absolutely no idea how they managed to find anything on it. There were some vials and jars that were totally empty taking up space they needed, and others that were half full. Others that were dangerous to place side by side that were, in fact, side by side.
She sighed heavily and moved those items away from each other before she went rustling around for the empty containers left on the shelf. She waved her wand to clean them and then looked around curiously for what they did with the empty jars. A cabinet full of them was behind the open door so she placed them in that general vicinity and stared at the ingredients left on the shelves.
There were hundreds — all of them perfectly labeled with expiration dates — and some of which she'd never seen or worked with before. She wasn't quite sure the best way to organize them. Alphabetical made the most sense, but then of course she ran the risk of placing ingredients next to each other that weren't intended to be stored together. It made the most sense then to organize them based on which ones they used most often.
Something she didn't entirely know, but she could estimate based on the amount still left within each jar, couldn't she?
Perhaps she should check with them first, but she still didn't hear George coming back, despite the fact that the louder pops and banging had ceased, and it wasn't as though she had anything else to be doing.
And they were wizards, weren't they? They could summon them if they couldn't find it.
She did her best to take guesses of what they used most often, and stacked them on the top shelf, lining identical ingredients behind each other based on expiration so that the oldest was used first. Combining them felt dangerous — she had no idea what they used any of it for, but ingesting half-expired, half-good Armadillo Bile sounded like the sort of thing she didn't want to be doing. Or at least like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
And though they seemed fond of blowing things up, it was entirely another to blow something up by choice and have it blow up by mistake.
What was she even doing? Organizing a work room that she had never before stepped into? She really needed to bring things in her bag that would distract herself in these situations.
It was nearly an hour before George managed to get away from the store front, and she moved away from the shelves hastily at the sound of his footsteps, as if she were about to be caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
"Sorry about that, Verity needed help manning the registers and —" He stopped talking immediately at the sight of her guilty expression. "What are you — did you clean up in here?"
The words were laced with amusement, but she still scrunched her face up guiltily.
"You were gone awhile…" she said guiltily.
He grinned at her, humming in mock-understanding.
"You want me to leave again then?" he said, jerking his head toward the door. "I'm not going to say no to free labor."
She snorted and rolled her eyes.
"Nice try," she said, earning a laugh. He either laughed a lot or she'd gotten funnier because no one had ever thought her this amusing before. Ron had always found her quite annoying when she was this blunt. But thinking of Ron was painful, so she cleared her throat and said, "Why don't you hire someone else? You look buried."
George sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair and making his way back to the center table, waving his wand over the chocolates. A set of numbers appeared over them, she assumed the temperature, and he summoned boxes from…somewhere. Possibly the store room she'd seen Fred coming out of earlier.
"We would if we could find the time to interview people," he said, sounding exhausted. "Verity already does enough around here without asking her to watch the floor while we interview people —"
"I can help if you want."
She had absolutely no idea what had made her say it, but the words were out before she could even begin to understand it.
He looked up at her in surprise.
"You want to help?" he said as if he were trying to figure out what would possess her to do that. That certainly made two of them.
"Well, I mean, I can," she said, looking away from him to study the rest of the room. "I don't start work until September, so it's not like I have anything to do. And you could clearly use it, couldn't you? It would at least give you time to hire someone else before the school year starts."
He looked at her for a long moment, and she was seriously considering taking it back because it had been a wild thing to offer out of the blue, so she probably —
"Yeah, I mean, sure, but don't you want to take a break before you have to work?" he said.
She gave him a look that was clearly intended to make him realize his own ridiculousness.
"Do I look like the sort of person who knows how to relax?" she said pointedly. He pursed his lips to keep from laughing. "I sort of wish I'd started right away — there's only so much to do at the Burrow. Aside from listening to your mother ramble on about weddings and grandbabies which I'm distinctly trying not to think about."
He snorted.
"Just a week ago, she was as upset about the law as we were," he said with a shake of his head. "But we'll put in a pin in that. Say you do help — you're telling me that perfect, law-abiding Hermione Granger is going to make a recommendation to a fiery eight-year old boy about what product is best to get his sister to stop kissing her boyfriend?"
It was said more as a statement than a question, but she scrunched her face up in displeasure regardless.
"I'd prefer to send him your or Fred's direction, but if I have to then I'll just try to remember all the things Ron said he wished he could do to you when you were being a prat," she said. He raised an eyebrow.
"You're quite amusing, Granger," he said honestly, smirking when her cheeks colored in response.
"Besides, there are at least a hundred other things I can do that don't include encouraging children to behave like —"
"Children?" He finished pointedly. She paused.
"Misbehaved children," she said pointedly before continuing as if he hadn't interrupted her, ignoring the chuckle he let out in response. "You could clearly use help with owl orders, and don't get me started on the state of this room. I hardly want to know what the store room looks like. And Verity needs help with the registers. And I could always help restock, assuming you're not keeping this all as some sort of trade secret —"
"Alright, alright, you've made your point," he said, laughing. "I'll have to talk to Fred, but I'm sure he won't mind. He's as exhausted as I am. You're sure about this?"
"Not at all," she said with a laugh, relaxing a little now that he hadn't completely turned her down. "But I really could use something to do with myself other than worrying about…"
The awkwardness enveloped them immediately again, and she had no idea what she was supposed to say again. She'd come over here to have this conversation, and yet it still wasn't going to get any easier.
George recovered faster than she did, pausing in his diligent packaging to lean against the table. He crossed his legs at the ankle and rested his hands behind him on the table edge.
"Right, I assume that's what you're here for," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. She nodded, though she'd gone mute. "I was going to owl you, but it sort of…"
"I know," she said, chewing her bottom lip anxiously. It was all coming back to her now, the absurdity of the entire thing, and her anger, heartbreak, and guilt all slamming into her at once. "I'm sorry, George."
He raised both his eyebrows in surprise.
"For what?" he said. "It's not your fault."
"No, I know that, but I — I mean, it just feels ridiculous, the whole thing." she said with a nervous laugh. "I didn't expect you to get stuck with me. I mean, I don't really know what they were — I'm sure you would have preferred someone else. It could have been someone prettier or funnier or, I don't know, less of your brother's girlfriend — oh God, were you seeing someone? I didn't even ask and that's —"
"Hermione," George said, laughing in shock, and raising his hands in placation. "Take a breath, alright? I don't know what sorts of things Ronnie's been putting into your head, but you're perfectly nice to look at —"
"You're saying that to be nice, but it doesn't matter —"
"It does matter," he said firmly. "You sell yourself far shorter than you should. You're a beautiful woman, Hermione. Besides, when have you ever known me to say anything just to be nice?"
She hesitated, eyeing him suspiciously.
"Well, never, but —"
George talked before she could continue whatever self-deprecating speech he was sure was going to follow.
"And you're much funnier when you can't give me detention," he said with a smirk. She huffed at him, but didn't say anything. "Look, Hermione, as far as I can see it, we don't have a choice here, and I'd really prefer we didn't go into this thing feeling badly for ourselves. And I certainly don't want us to go into it thinking we're stuck together."
She blinked at him several times before she answered.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that we're friends, Mione," he said as if this were entirely obvious. "Maybe not the closest of friends, mind, but I do care about you. I respect you. You're brilliant and independent and honest — not exactly the worst sort of person I could have been paired with. We'll have to work on loosening you up, though, or this is going to be a disaster."
Hermione straightened indignantly.
"I'm loose!" she said. He raised an eyebrow at her and she huffed. "Just because I don't — don't blow up toilets in my spare time doesn't mean I'm uptight."
"I'd like it noted here that I didn't say uptight," he said with a grin. "And for the record, I've never blown up a toilet. Myrtle made that up."
Hermione gave him a look full of disbelief and he tried not to laugh.
"I'm sure she did," she deadpanned before sighing heavily. "You don't think that this is horribly awkward? I mean, we're supposed to…"
If the thought didn't make him feel so awkward himself he might have made fun of her for her reluctance to say it out loud. As it was though, it was very odd to think about at the moment, so he didn't bother.
"One day at a time, okay?" he said instead of answering. "That's ten months from now, and we've got plenty to worry about before then. We've got plenty of getting to know each other to do before that point. We can just worry about that for the moment, and if anything develops out of it then we don't have to worry about the rest of it at all."
"And if nothing changes from right now?" she said. "If nothing…develops and we're just — just friends like we are now?"
She couldn't help it. She was an analytical person, and she needed to have everything laid out in front of her or she'd just think of every possible thing that could go wrong for weeks on end.
And it just was so horribly awkward to imagine sleeping with George Weasley, her ex's older brother whom she had spoken to only at family dinners. And she had doubts that romantic feelings would develop between them when neither one of them appeared to have considered each other in that way before now.
And how did the Ministry even know that the spell and tests were accurate? It wasn't as if they'd ever done this before.
"Then we'll work through that when we get there," he said seriously. Truthfully, this was the most serious she'd ever seen him and it made her feel a little better about the entire thing. "I can't tell you what this will look like ten months from now, Hermione, and I'm not going to lie to you and say that we're going to fall madly in love with each other and end up thinking this was a blessing in disguise because I don't know that and there's a chance that we just end up fulfilling the law and remaining friends afterward." He paused with a heavy sigh. "What I can promise you is that I'll give this my all because I don't do anything in half-measures as I'm sure is obvious to you by now. I'll respect you and be faithful for the entirety of the time that we're within whatever totally absurd situation this is, and I'll be open and honest with you about how I feel about it. If and when we have children, I'll put every effort into them too. That's what I can promise you, and if you're at least willing to give me the same, then I think we'll be fine. We can just work on spending more time together and let the pieces fall where they may."
It was still so weird to think about, and she was still so unbelievably heartbroken about not being paired with Ron, but it was reasonable to approach the entire thing that way. With no expectations for what might come, though the idea of the entire thing was so overwhelming to her.
It was also probably the very nicest thing he'd ever said to her, and it kind of made her want to cry. She'd been horribly emotional lately, and a total mess, but he was…totally calm in front of her.
"I — okay, I can do that," she said eventually, nodding resolutely. "I'm sorry about the other night…with Ron."
He looked at her for a long moment without saying anything, as if he were heavily debating what he wanted to say next.
"It isn't your job to apologize for him," he said eventually. She opened her mouth to argue that she wasn't but he didn't appear altogether pressed about the fact. "Have you talked to him?"
She hesitated.
They certainly never had been close before this, and this felt like the sort of conversation she'd have had with Ginny or Harry before she'd ever considered having it with him. But, logically speaking, he was now her…fiancé. Her friend-fiance. Whatever the hell it was.
Perhaps that meant he deserved a little more information than she might have typically given him before. Especially because he was in a horrible position at the moment.
"No," she said, trying to keep her voice even. He certainly didn't deserve to have her crying over his idiot brother when she was supposed to be marrying him instead. Even if talking about Ron made her feel like she was free-falling through black space. "He hasn't said a word to me since — since he said he wouldn't propose."
If the conversation made him uncomfortable, he didn't say so, simply setting the packaged migraines off to the side and then grabbing his piping tool and beginning to add more of the chocolate mixture to the molds.
She wondered idly if he had to do them by hand or if he was doing it as a distraction.
"Did he say why he wouldn't?"
"No, not — not really. Not anything that made sense anyway," she said in irritation. "We fight a lot…I expect too much of him…the usual. He was adamant that they would pair us together. He told me to owl him when I grow up, and — well, I sort of don't want to give him the satisfaction when he acts like such a — such a —"
"Dick?" George offered with a smirk. She gave him a disapproving look.
"Don't talk like that," she said immediately. "It's vulgar —"
"It's honest," he said with a laugh. "You're an adult, Hermione, you aren't going to get in trouble for swearing. And beside the fact, you clearly agree with me otherwise you'd have told me not to talk like that because it's mean or untrue."
She opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it, and he laughed again.
"Well, that's hardly the point," she said primly.
"Sure it isn't," he said with a wink that made her huff at him again. She was so easy to rile. "Anyway, I think you should talk to him."
"I'm sorry?" she said indignantly.
He laughed, putting his tools down and looking up to meet her eyes.
"Not because I agree with him, Granger, relax," he said. "I think that the both of you are allowed to be unhappy about certain aspects of your relationship, and that's none of my business. And I'm agreeing here that he's a prat, and he doesn't deserve to have you make the effort when he treats you that way —"
"Then why should I do it?" she said petulantly.
"Because you deserve closure, Hermione," he said bluntly, his gaze unwavering. Closure — she didn't like that word. It implied that there was no going back for her and Ron, and she didn't want to think that way. But…there wasn't any going back, was there? She was being ordered to marry someone else and so was he, and there was no coming back from that. "It's easier to let go if you do, and, truthfully, I'm okay knowing that you're getting over your relationship with him, but eventually the two of you have to break things off. No matter what happens between us — if we stay friends, if it becomes more, if we stay married or don't — I don't want to be wondering if you're sneaking off to be with my brother every night when you say you're at the office —"
"I wouldn't —"
"We all say we wouldn't until we do," he said, smiling at her sadly. "I'm promising you my time and energy and attention, whether this becomes romantic or not. Whenever you overturn the law — because I've no doubt you will — if you and I are just friends, and we part amicably, then I could hardly care what you and Ron are doing. But until that point, I want the same amount of dedication and loyalty as I'm giving you."
It wasn't unreasonable. If the tables were reversed, she'd have probably told him the same thing. She had no interest in sleeping with a man that was sleeping with someone else, even if this entire thing wasn't within their control. And if they had children…they certainly didn't deserve to see either one of their parents sneaking off to be with someone else.
And she would overturn the law, if it was the very last thing she did because it was the right thing to do. And if she and Ron were really meant to be together then that would still be true after the fact.
"I'll talk to him," she said, feeling like her heart might rip itself out at the mere thought of breaking things off. But it wasn't as if she hadn't already been treating things as if they already had broken up. He hadn't spoken to her in weeks, and after he'd been so excited to be paired with Romilda, the thought of him both hurt and made her want to smash her fist into his face. "You didn't answer before…" he raised his eyebrows in question, so she clarified. "If you were seeing someone before the law."
"I wasn't seeing anyone seriously, no," he said. She had a feeling she knew what that meant, but she refused to ask. They weren't that close at the moment. "With how busy the shop is and us wanting to expand, marriage and kids weren't exactly on my radar. At least not for a while."
He said the words more matter-of-factly than resentfully, but it confused her how he could be so reasonable and calm about something so serious. She felt like her entire world was being ripped to shreds, and he was simply…going about his life as if nothing had changed.
"You're very calm about this for somebody who's had their entire life turned upside down," she said accusingly.
He chuckled.
"Hardly. I drank three glasses of firewhiskey the last three nights in a row," he said, and she couldn't tell if he was joking or not. "I'm as upset about this as you are, and I don't like that this is hurting you as much as it is. It makes it worse for me, truthfully, but I can't make this go away, and this isn't your or my fault. There's no use in me sitting here worrying about something I don't have control over. I'd much rather figure out a solution that works for us at the moment, and go from there. Plus I've got firewhiskey on standby for when we've closed the shop."
"I hope you aren't planning to throw yourself into alcoholism," she said pointedly. "I've no interest in marrying a drunkard."
"You take the fun out of life, my dearest Hermione," he joked. She gave him a half-smile, but he'd take it. "Look, go home. Relax. Read a book. I'll owl you once I talk to Fred about having you help with the shop, and we can talk some more on Sunday, yeah?"
She nodded, sighing heavily, but then her eyes caught the partial mess of the shelves that she hadn't yet gotten to.
"I — well, can I do that after?" She said sheepishly. "Because I sort of started organizing those shelves and it's going to bother me to leave it like that…"
He clearly found this incredibly amusing because he grinned widely and looked away from her in an attempt to keep himself from laughing. She rolled her eyes, despite the reluctant smile on her face, and waited for him to pull himself together.
"If that helps you, love," he said finally, waving her in the direction of the shelves. "I've got more of these to make though, so you'll have to pretend like you can stand the sight of me."
She didn't comment on the endearment, choosing to give him an exasperated look instead.
"I never said I couldn't stand the sight of you," she said before adding, "It's your voice that really grates on my nerves."
He laughed loudly, and pointed his tool of chocolate at her in warning.
"Careful, Granger," he said. "I've got plenty more of this to spare, and I've no problem force-feeding it to you."
She snorted, turning away from him with a dry look in his direction, choosing instead to focus on what she'd been doing. There was still so much to sort, and she had no idea what time it was, but she needed something to soothe her frazzled emotions.
She worked mostly in silence, occasionally asking him random questions about what they used certain ingredients for. He didn't seem all that bothered by her presence, puttering around behind her, swearing occasionally when he burnt himself on the chocolate he was working with or answering her questions in a distracted fashion. Most of his concentration was applied to what was happening in front of him, though he didn't appear at all irritated by her sometimes incessant bouts of questioning, and he seemed perfectly content to let her do whatever she needed.
It wasn't horrible…having him present but with no expectation for conversation. In all the time she'd known him, she'd only ever seen the wild, chaotic side of him. The side of him that required him to be loud and outgoing and the center of attention. She'd never once seen him put so much concentration and effort into anything as he was in the products in front of him. She'd never once seen him this…passionate.
She'd always thought him careless, immature, a bit unserious. But if she watched him long enough, she could see the obvious love he had for his craft. His hands were careful and steady, his focus unwavering, every candy perfectly uniform and of the very best quality. He didn't cut corners, any mistake in the perfect process was scrapped or fixed until it met whatever high standard he had set.
It was intriguing for some reason. Perhaps because she'd never seen him so meticulous and committed, but she found herself a bit distracted by his careful concentration.
"Okay, the shop is closed, Verity is going to need a raise, and —" Fred paused when he entered the room, his eyes taking in the spaces that had been de-cluttered with barely concealed surprise. "Why can I see the tables? There's no way you could have made all those and organized —" He paused when Hermione stood from the floor, dusting her pants off with her hands. Fred grinned widely, giving his brother a cheeky look that earned him an eye roll. "Ah, our beautiful Hermione," he said in an overly dramatic fashion. "I should have known. You'd never have left without saying goodbye to me, would you?"
She rolled her eyes. He was always so ridiculously arrogant.
"I forgot about you entirely, actually," she said, rolling her eyes when he stumbled backward with a hand over his heart.
"You hurt me, Marnie," he said.
She gaped at him.
"Marnie?" she said, bewildered. "Are you having a stroke? That's not even my name!"
George choked on a laugh and Fred grinned.
"I'm trying to be original," he said, mock-affronted. "You didn't like all of the other nicknames I gave you —"
"You can call me by my name," she said, exasperated.
"Too clunky," he said dismissively.
"Clunky?"
"Alright, break it up," George said in amusement, waving his wand and sending the stacks of migraine candies off down the hall to the store room. "Before Granger loses her temper and decides not to help with the shop anymore."
She gave him an exasperated look that mirrored the one she'd given his brother.
"Yes, because that is the tragedy," she said. "Not the fact that your idiot brother is going to call me Marnie for the next two weeks."
"I told you you react too easily, love," he said with an eyebrow raise. "You can't give him an opening to irritate you. He can't help himself."
"Okay, let's rewind, yes?" Fred said, pulling their attention back to them. "What's this about the shop?"
"Hermione offered to help until she starts with the Ministry in September," George said, leaning back against the table. "So that we can try to catch up and hire someone before the school year —"
Fred whooped excitedly, and pulled Hermione into a hug so tight that it lifted her off of the floor.
"Fred, for Merlin's sake, I can't breathe —"
"You are a beautiful, beautiful soul, Granger," he said happily, setting her down on the floor. "I could kiss you —"
"Absolutely not!" she said, struggling against him. George laughed from behind her at her panic, and Fred tightened his hold, lifting her off the ground.
"You are a blessing to the world, darling," he said, only half-joking. "Quite possibly my favorite person on this Earth —"
"I thought that was George," she said, finally managing to free herself from his grasp.
"He snores," Fred said. "Very loudly. I could use some sleep."
"That's you, idiot," George snorted, walking up behind her. "It's a blessing not to be in the same room with you anymore."
"Right, you're the one who talks in your sleep, I forget."
"How could you possibly forget that you snore?" Hermione said incredulously.
"Me, George — George, me," Fred said cheerily. "It's all very complex, darling. Anyway, since you're saving our lives — and possibly giving us an actual eight hours sleep for the next two months — let us take you to dinner."
"Oh, no, really, it's —"
"Don't bother arguing," George said, ushering them out of the workshop and toward the front of the shop. "We're not very good at listening, and it's easier to eat when you're not bound and gagged."
She sighed heavily.
"Fine," she said resignedly. "Only because it'll keep me from another dinner listening to your mother talk about china patterns and cake flavors."
"She's a bit barmy, mum," Fred said before grinning at George. "You think we can convince Granger to test those candies we were working on last night?"
"No," she said immediately.
George grinned, leading them out the store front and performing a complicated series of movements with his wand.
"You don't even know what they are," he said, turning to face her again.
"Not gonna happen," she said firmly. "If you two want to play doctor, that's your own business —"
"Doctor?" Fred said, his brow furrowing. "Oh, right — those Muggle nutters who cut people open —"
Hermione snorted.
"Those are surgeons," she said. "And it's all very scientific, you know —"
Fred looked at George as if he were doubting her intelligence.
"She'll believe that, but she won't test one measly product."
She rolled her eyes, suddenly wishing she'd thought of some excuse to get away from their ridiculousness. Then again, she was going to be dealing with them more often now, wasn't she?
"Either shut up and feed me, or I'm going home. You're very annoying."
George chuckled.
"You're so sweet to us, Granger," he said sweetly. "Lead the way. We're yours to command."
"I sincerely doubt that," she muttered, walking back toward the Leaky Cauldron toward one of the cafes in the alley.
If they were that good at listening, the next several months might not be even half as difficult as she was picturing in her head.
I do a nickname-banter-situation with Fred and a character in every story I feel like LOL. I can't help it. He's such a goofy pain in the ass, and nicknames are so amusing sometimes. I'm off for a mental health break, lovelies, but I appreciate you all!