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“Hurry up, Hermione!” Harry called from the drawing room at Grimmauld Place.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Hermione shouted back, grabbing two more bottles of mulled wine from the counter and levitating a tray with several slices of cake behind her into the hall. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”
“Hush,” Ginny chastised, reclined on the hearth in front of the fire with her head in Harry’s lap. “If they get twisted, I can help un-twist them later.”
She waggled her eyebrows while Fred and George booed and Ron grimaced, taking a long draft from his glass.
“Are we sure this game isn’t too dodgy with how many of the participants are related?” He asked as Hermione topped him off before placing the bottles on the table in the middle of the room. She took a seat on the ground against Luna’s legs and it took perhaps thirty seconds before she felt her hair start to be braided and toyed with.
“Scared you’ll fess up to something, little brother?” Fred asked, grinning.
“Me thinks the lad doth protest too much,” George agreed.
“Let’s get on with it,” Ginny interjected impatiently, sitting up and drawing a tiny black vile from the pocket of her jumper. “Cups on the table, everyone.”
They all obliged, though some more reluctantly than others.
“Two drops each,” Hermione warned, wincing a little as Luna inadvertently tugged a few stray hairs at the nape of her neck. “I think I diluted it properly, but just to be safe.”
“Can we go over the rules again?” Neville interjected, glancing around nervously.
“The game is drink or dare,” Harry explained, levitating cups to Lee and Angelina across the room once Ginny had dosed them. “Hermione, genius that she is, managed to work out a variation on veritaserum that only lasts for about one minute after drinking.”
“The brightest witch of our age finally putting those brains to good use,” Fred commended, a trace of genuine pride in his voice. Hermione was thankful that he was behind her shoulder because he couldn’t see the way she flushed under the praise. That aside, she did twirl her hand and pantomime a bow.
“Consider it a birthday gift, gentlemen,” she said to the twins, whose twenty-fourth birthdays were the cause for their celebration in the first place.
“Someone starts,” Ginny continued, “And then they just spin the bottle in the middle to see who goes next.”
“You only drink if you choose drink – or truth, rather,” Hermione concluded. She accepted her own cup back. It being her third of the night, she determined there was a relatively good chance she was going to forget the game and drink it accidentally anyway.
“I’ll start!” Ginny volunteered all too readily once everyone had their cups back. She reached forward and spun the empty wine bottle, grinning like a maniac when it landed on her youngest brother.
“Oh, fucking hell…” Ron muttered under his breath.
“Truth or dare, Ronald?”
“Hermione, darling, truth or dare?”
“Let’s go with dare,” Hermione decided glibly, reaching forward and nicking a bit of icing from her plate on the table.
“I dare you… to sit in another player’s lap for the remainder of the game. Barring participation in other dares, of course.”
She sucked the icing from the tip of her finger, humming thoughtfully.
“My choice?”
Ginny nodded and Hermione did a few quick mental calculations.
Despite Ron’s nonchalant attempt to sit back in his seat and make room for her, he was definitely out. Too much hazardous history there.
Luna arched a pale brow that, while intriguing, was unfortunately not her cup of tea.
In her head, Harry was disqualified given his relationship with Ginny, and Angelina and George were similarly ineligible. All would be good sports about it, but better not to even bring it up. So that left…
“Hmmm,” Hermione pondered aloud, looking between Fred, Lee and Neville. Neville would be gracious and awkward and ultimately nothing would come of it. She didn’t know Lee all that well, though he was rather fit. But Fred – well, he wasn’t the safe choice of the three, to be sure. Not as far as she was concerned.
Before her brain fully caught up though, she was already getting to her feet, taking her wine glass with her.
“Well, birthday boy?” She asked, teasing smile tugging at the corners or her mouth as she stood in front of the armchair. “Are you going to budge over, or what?”
Fred chuckled under his breath. As he made eye contact with her, he licked his bottom lip and squinted a little, like he was trying to parse out her selection.
Whatever he was thinking, he seemed to push it to the side, instead brushing a hand over the tops of his thighs in an inviting motion.
There were several whistles and catcalls as she draped herself across his lap, carefully schooling her genuine reaction from her face and making sure her skirt was covering all the important bits. Fred didn’t waste any time, fishing an arm around her waist and settling a hand on her hip. Her skin burned beneath his fanned fingers.
“Wouldn’t want you to fall,” he reasoned under his breath as the group carried on after a moment of good-natured teasing. Hermione turned her head, not realizing how close their faces were as she did so. Her nose nearly brushed his jaw and the faint scent of sandalwood and aftershave flooded her senses.
“Yeah,” she replied, thinking it was suddenly very warm in the room. “Wouldn’t want that.”
She tried her best to direct her attention back toward the game, but it was proving more than a little difficult. Every time Fred moved, adjusted her position, breathed, her pulse jumped.
“Ginny, could you spin the bottle for me?” Hermione called out, her voice sounding strained even to her own ears.
Her friend obliged, oblivious, and it came to rest on Luna.
“Luna, truth or dare?”
Luna pondered for a moment before replying, “Truth.”
“What’s your body count?” Hermione asked, genuinely curious. She’d always sort of wondered, but it hadn’t ever come up organically.
Luna took a sip of her drink and then replied easily. “Six; that isn’t a very difficult question, Hermione.”
“You’ve had sex with six people?” Ron asked from beside her, brows raised. He sounded a little incredulous.
“Wait, is that what you meant?” Luna looked questioningly back at Hermione, who nodded slowly. “Oh, then I suppose I need to change my answer. Eleven.”
The room went dead silent for a moment before erupting into laughter.
“What the bloody hell did you think she meant?!” Angelina squawked, visibly trying to catch her breath and swiping at her eyes.
“I thought –“
“Don’t finish that sentence!” Harry cut in, stopping her with a raised hand, though his shoulders were shaking as well. “There are members of the DMLE present – bloody hell, we’re all going to end up in Azkaban.”
Though Luna still looked befuddled, the group once again gradually regained their composure and carried on with the game.
Whenever Hermione thought Fred wasn’t looking, she’d try and peek at his expression, to determine if he was as painfully aware of her as she was of him, but it was unreadable. Just the same good-natured smirk, the same ease, that he always had.
And wasn’t that just positively maddening?
A little while, and several glasses of mead later, Hermione made to reposition and adjust her skirt, wiggling in place on his lap and tugging at the fabric until she was satisfied.
“Are you alright?” She asked Fred under her breath once she’d found a better arrangement, trying not to interrupt a dare that had George and Angelina swapping clothing. “I'm sorry if I’m crushing you.”
“You’re definitely not crushing me,” Fred replied with a quiet, slightly rueful laugh. There was a trace of tension in his voice as he spoke, and she glanced up to make sure it wasn’t a lie – because hang the game, she would get off of him if he was uncomfortable. He certainly seemed jittery about something.
“Here, I can say I need to use the loo –“ she swung her legs sideways so her back was to his chest and made to move off of the chair when his grip on her waist tightened abruptly.
“Hermione, I really need you not to get up right now.”
Warm breath ghosted over the back of her neck and her stomach flipped. Nobody was paying them any attention at all, fully preoccupied with the spectacle taking place across the room.
“What? Wh—?” She swallowed the end of her question when he pulled her flush to his chest and her ass slid sharply down toward his hips, against exactly the part of his body that she'd been avoiding. Then she didn’t need to ask, because she felt why he didn’t want her to get up. “Oh.”
Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she could hear the blood rushing in her ears.
“Sorry,” Fred said carefully, apologetically, but she shook her head.
“N-no need to apologise,” Hermione stuttered, trying to relax back against him in the seat and thanking the gods that her arousal wasn’t as detectable as his was. Because just then it felt like a neon sign flashing over her head. “It happens. It’s normal. Natural.”
“Natural,” he echoed distractedly, nodding in her periphery.
But as he said it, his hand slid slowly from her waist to the top of her bare thigh, just above her knee, and she had to stop her eyes from dropping shut. His fingertips were tracing the hem of her skirt and it was too much, way too bloody much.
Why hadn’t she just picked Neville’s lap? Neville was sweet. Safe.
This, on the other hand... she’d had actual sex that was less erotic than this.
“I’m calling that one as Fred,” Harry said suddenly.
“What?” Fred and Hermione asked in unison, jerking and snapping out of whatever stupor they’d been trapped in. Fred’s hand disappeared from her leg so fast, she was half-convinced she’d imagined it being there in the first place.
“The bottle?” Harry said pointedly, looking at them as though they’d lost their minds. He gestured to the table in the middle of the room. “It landed on Fred.”
“Right,” Fred said, leaning around her. And just like that, he was completely back to normal, unruffled. “Truth.”
Angelina considered for a moment while Hermione tried to remember how exactly breathing worked. “What would you say is a common misconception about you? Something people assume that isn’t true.”
Fred took a drink and smirked, his eyes flickering sideways for a split second and connecting with Hermione’s before he turned back to the group.
“That I’m always joking.”
“Did you have fun tonight?” Ginny asked, clearly intoxicated as she wrapped her arms around Hermione’s waist from behind in the middle of the kitchen. It was well past midnight and the party had largely broken up, though everyone was sleeping there. Harry’s fireplace wasn’t connected to the floo network and apparating while drunk was a recipe for disaster.
“Of course,” Hermione said, laughing as Ginny began to sway slightly to the music still playing in the next room. She glanced over her shoulder and noted that her friend’s eyes were bloodshot and hardly open, though she wore a dopey smile. “Good Godric, you’re well and truly pissed, aren’t you?”
“Mmmm… yeah,” Ginny muttered, giggling maniacally. “Suppose I’d better get to bed.”
“I think that’d be best, love,” Hermione said, patting her hand and then carefully setting the mound of glasses and dishware beside the sink to wash. “Get a hangover draught from the bathroom cupboard on your way up. You’ll thank me tomorrow.”
“I will,” Ginny promised, releasing her hold and heading for the swinging door into the hall, tottering as she went. “’Night, Hermione. Love you.”
“’Night, Gin. Love you too.”
As the other witch disappeared up the stairs, more than likely crawling her way up, Hermione wandered back into the dining room to collect a few more errant dishes. Originally she was going to be the one hosting the twins’ impromptu birthday bash, but she’d managed to talk her way out of it by reason of her flat being tiny and Harry having plenty of spare bedrooms. So, the least she could do was help with cleaning.
The record in the other room finally came to an end, soft static mingling with an occasional pop from the fireplace, and she was suddenly able to hear low voices speaking as she passed the door. She thought she picked out her own name and, curious as ever, she couldn’t stop herself from halting and cocking an ear.
“— two of you looked pretty cosy tonight, eh?” That sounded like Lee.
“’Spose,” a familiar voice replied, seeming a little indifferent for her self-esteem’s well-being. She pictured Fred shrugging as he said it and frowned.
“’Spose,’ he says,” another very similar voice chimed in with a mocking undertone and a chuckle. “’Spose’ my pale white arse. Besotted bastard fancies her, has for a while.”
“Oh?”
“’Oh,’ nothing,” Fred quickly fired back. “It’s not like that. Hermione’s just… a friend. A good friend. A mate.”
“Yeah, and Luna is a pillar of sanity, and Ginny’s favorite colour is baby pink. But whatever – be a stupid prat. I’m going to bed.”
The conversation ceased a moment later and Hermione heard footfalls and boards creaking as they made their way upstairs. Feeling a bit deflated, she collected the last few glasses and set the tablecloth to rights, taking the dishes back to the kitchen and adding them to the stack.
Physiological responses aside, it wasn’t as though she’d allowed herself to entertain the thought of Fred being interested in her, not really. If she had, then hearing what he'd said just then certainly would have been a blow. If she’d, say, carried a torch for years, wanting him but not saying anything for fear of endangering her dynamic with the larger Weasley clan, it might actually really hurt.
But she didn’t. So it didn’t. So why bother dwelling on it?
Hermione made to extinguish the fire in the drawing room and go to bed herself when the music started up again, soft and barely discernable in the otherwise quiet house. She listened for a moment and recognised one of Sirius’ old Elton John records.
Her stomach flip-flopped when she entered the room, dim save for the fire in the hearth. Fred was still there, sitting on the couch and idly twirling his wand. The top two buttons on his navy oxford were undone and the sleeves were pushed up just below his elbows, displaying muscled forearms bespeckled by freckles and the occasional white scar.
“Hey,” she said quietly, drawing his eye as she stepped around the edge of the now-vacant wingchair and perched on the arm. “Thought you went up.”
“Nah,” he said, running a hand through his hair and leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees. “Not tired yet. But I can put out the fire if you want to go to bed.”
She took in his expression, unusually pensive despite his lax position on the sofa and the light tone of the evening.
“I’m not really tired either – if you don’t mind the company, that is.”
That same curious expression flickered across his face from earlier, but then he shook his head and grinned.
“By all means.”
She turned and slipped down into the chair, legs still hooked over the arm. Her skirt rode up her thighs a little and she was going to correct it until she noticed Fred’s gaze catch for a moment on the swath of bare skin above her knee, the very same spot he'd touched earlier. So she left it instead.
“Want to continue the game?” Fred asked, gesturing to the phial of diluted veritaserum and half a bottle of mead still on the table between them.
“That could be a bad idea,” she reasoned after pondering for a beat all the ways in which that could go wrong.
“Oh, it’s definitely a bad idea. But what’s life without a little poor judgement?” Fred challenged wryly, flicking his wand and summoning two glasses from the kitchen. He then poured them each a draught, carefully tipping two drops of the potion into each and giving it a swirl. "I'll consider it a birthday gift."
Acting in defiance of every warning bell sounding in her head, she reached out and took it.
“Well, Weasley: truth or dare?”
“Oh, you're going to pay for that one,” Fred said some time later, after he’d finished recounting a tale involving a new product and a persistent case of boils when she’d requested an embarrassing story. "In fact, I dare you to spend the remainder of the game in the lap of another player."
Hermione threw her head back and laughed. “Would you believe that I’m having the strangest sense of déjà vu right now?”
“How incredibly odd,” Fred teased, biting his lip and sitting back against the sofa as she got up. She crossed the room on relatively steady feet, taking her time and admiring the slight muss to his hair and the way the fire flickered and danced in his ocean-blue eyes.
But the laughter on his lips died a swift death when, rather than draping sideways across his legs as she had before, Hermione braced herself, carefully lowered onto the sofa, and straddled him.
“Problem?” She asked, blinking innocently as she sank the rest of the way down to set her ass on his thighs, knees snug around his hips. She took care to make sure her skirt stayed covering her knickers, at least.
“No,” he said hoarsely, but she swore a shiver ran through him. He tried and failed to school his expression into one of normalcy, like he had earlier, but it didn’t quite take. “Carry on.”
“Alright, truth or dare?”
“T-truth,” he stuttered out as she adjusted position, rocking her hips forward a little. Hermione had never heard him stutter before, and he shook his head like he was trying to clear it. Something warm and hard and familiar brushed the inside of her thigh, concealed beneath her dress, and liquid heat pooled low in her stomach.
“Do you really think of me as a mate?” Hermione asked, barely above a whisper. Their lips were a scarce few inches apart and every nerve-ending in her body felt like a live wire.
Glass still in hand, Fred raised it and took a swig, throat bobbing.
“Of course,” he said truthfully after swallowing. “You’re my friend.”
Veristaserum didn’t compel you to tell the whole truth, just restricted the ability to lie. Hermione took this as a challenge because, despite what he’d said earlier, the energy between them at that moment was far from platonic.
She’d set her glass on the table behind her when she sat down and, feeling a little brazen and a lot reckless, she slowly ghosted her fingertips along the front of his chest, toying with a button before moving them over his exposed collarbones and up his neck, all the while leaving goosebumps in their wake.
Her nails raked lightly over his scalp when they reached the nape of his neck before she twined her fingers into his hair. Then she gently, but firmly, tipped his head back to meet her gaze straight-on, something he’d seemed to be avoiding since their change in position.
“Do friends do this?”
She kept eye contact for a long second before dipping her head and brushing her lips along the column of his throat, beneath his jaw. That time the shudder that rolled through him was undeniable, the cords of his neck tightening as though he were wrestling with something.
“No,” Fred breathed, the heavy rise and fall of his chest brushing her breasts as she leaned further forward. The bra she was wearing wasn’t padded and her overly-sensitive nipples pricked beneath it.
“What about best friends?” She egged slowly, playfully, capturing his earlobe lightly between her teeth and flicking her tongue against it.
“Fuck,” he gritted out. There was a soft thud as he dropped his nearly empty glass and it tumbled onto the carpet.
“Well?” She pressed, unable to stop herself as she rocked her hips forward just the slightest bit, intentionally that time. She was practically panting, and it felt a little like she might die if she didn’t do something to relieve the aching need that had blossomed between her legs. The same one she’d tried her best to ignore earlier.
“No,” Fred rasped. She felt warm, slightly rough hands land on the outsides of her thighs and she gasped quietly, lips beside his ear as they slipped just under the edge of her skirt.
They were right there, toeing the line again without fully stepping over it.
Hermione squeezed her knees around him, pulled in a slow breath, and then whispered just beside his ear: “Dare.”
Fred cracked.
He groaned low in his chest and reached a hand up, firmly gripping the back of her neck and pulling her up and away from his throat. Then hot, frantic lips crushed against hers and she saw stars.
Oh.
Oh wow.
She tightened her hold on his hair to what had to be nearing the point of pain and his lips parted, her tongue meeting his in a slide that was new and foreign, but achingly perfect. He tasted like the mead they’d been drinking, oaky and sweet.
“Fred,” she moaned, this time into the infinitesimal space between their mouths as she pulled back a tiny bit and gasped for breath. “Touch me. Touch me. Please, touch me.”
She wasn’t sure what she expected, maybe for him to reach a hand beneath her skirt, or perhaps to turn them and press her back into the sofa. What she didn’t expect was for him to place his hands on her hips, lift her up with apparent ease, and reposition them so just one of his legs was between hers.
They hadn’t missed a beat in their frantic kissing as he did this, but she was drawing back again to ask what exactly he was doing when, hands still at her waist, Fred tugged her down. Hard.
Hermione’s knees splayed outward as the soaked cotton of her knickers ground against his thigh. More importantly, as her swollen, sensitive clit ground against his thigh.
Her lips parted in a silent cry and her forehead came to rest against his as a wave of pleasure wracked her. She didn’t waste any time rolling forward and doing it again, taking care not to knee him between the legs as she moved.
“Good girl, just like that,” Fred murmured, dipping his head to kiss and nip down her throat. He kept his hands on her hips and guided her for another moment before they went exploring.
She had a passing thought then, wondering precisely when she’d lost control of the situation, because she was certain she’d had it at some point, but as she continued to ride his thigh, she decided she didn’t care one bloody bit.
He skated his hands up the bare skin of her arms and then slipped his fingers beneath the straps of her dress, starting to push it over her shoulders. But then he stopped, leaning back to see her face in the firelight.
“Can I —?”
“Yes, please yes,” she gasped, mindlessly grinding against his leg like an animal in heat as he tugged the top of her dress and her bra down and put her breasts on full display. It didn’t matter that they were on a sofa, nor that the sofa was located in Harry’s drawing room. Fred was touching her, working her into a veritable frenzy of hormones and pleasure, and it was absolutely glorious.
“Fucking hell, you’re perfect,” he said softly, lowering his mouth to pull a taut nipple between his lips. One hand still in his hair, she used the other to grip his shoulder and leverage herself. Her knickers were utterly useless at that point, and she had to be near to soaking through his trousers.
Hermione wasn’t a blushing virgin by any stretch of the imagination and, as such, she knew what she needed to make herself climax. And, for as amazing as she felt, as turned on as she was by the blunt pressure against her clit and the tongue teasing her breasts, it wasn’t quite enough.
“Fred,” she eventually gasped, lips brushing his hair as her frustration built, “I – I need –“
“What do you need, Hermione?” He asked, voice low and fogged with desire. “Tell me. Fuck, please tell me. I want to give it to you. I want to hear what you sound like when you come.”
“Inside,” she admitted, flushing at the request but pressing onward because it felt like she’d tear apart at the seams if she didn’t. “I need s-something inside.”
She’d hardly finished speaking before a hand brushed the skin of her inner-thigh.
“Are you attached to these?” Fred asked, one finger lazily tracing the seam of her knickers. He had that teasing edge on his voice again, which made sense; she'd just handed over the key to making her completely unravel.
“Not especially,” she replied truthfully. Although frankly they could have been her favorite pair and she would have said the same thing.
“Good. Evanesco.”
He wandlessly vanished her knickers and Hermione ceased moving, her breath halting too.
Fred leaned back against the sofa, free hand reaching up to lightly grip her chin, and then he caught her in a gaze so intense she was surprised that she didn’t combust. Somehow, someway, her focus drifted from the pressure coiling low in her stomach, the hum of electric heat beneath her skin, to him. Just him. His smell, his voice, the solid warmth that his body radiated beneath hers.
“Do you have any idea how much I’ve thought about this?” He asked quietly, searching her face as he dragged a finger over her center, caressing but not quiet dipping in. It was like he was learning her anatomy, memorizing every curve and cleft. “How many times I’ve imagined watching you come undone on top of me? How many times I’ve jerked my cock, laying in bed at night and thinking about the way you’d feel? Fuck, the way you’d taste?”
She didn’t, but only because she’d never let herself go there. When she and Ron had ended their awkward non-relationship following the war, when she’d found out that she wouldn’t ever get her parents back, Hermione took her feelings for Fred and put them in a box. A box labeled, “Danger.” A box labeled, “Don’t risk the only family you have left.”
Though it had seemed practical at the time, the flaws in that plan were rapidly becoming clear. Because she did want him, desperately, and she had for some time. And, despite the position they were in, it wasn’t all physical. Not for her, at least.
Physical, however, was the language they'd elected to speak that night.
So, rather than answering with words, Hermione leaned down and kissed Fred again, slow and sweet and heady, cupping his jaw and feeling a sprinkle of stubble beneath her fingertips. Only his time, when he slipped his tongue into her mouth, he mimicked the action at her core.
Every muscle in her body clenched and pulsed, tightening around him like a spring, and Fred seemed to lose any semblance of control at that, positively devouring her. He added a second finger, pumping them up into her in a steady rhythm while he ground the heel of his palm against her clit.
Her head tipped forward as she got closer and closer, rocking against him again, this time riding his hand rather than his thigh. In a daze, she glanced down and saw his erection straining against the fabric beside his zipper and, without much maneuvering, she placed a hand on it and lightly squeezed.
She meant it as a sort of reassurance that this wasn’t ending with him fingering her and, given the way his hips jerked upward in response, pressing his cock into the palm of her hand, it seemed that the notion was well-received.
“Come for me, Hermione,” Fred half-begged, breathless and lavishing her throat with haphazard, warm kisses.
“I’m going to – fuck, I’m –“ she finished before the sentence did, an orgasm sweeping her into a proper tornado of sensations that left her gripping Fred so tightly that he briefly became the only thing in the universe. As though she were a balloon, floating and tethered to the earth by him and only him.
When she came back down, shuddering and slowly regaining a sense of awareness, the look on Fred’s face took her breath away – not that she really had any to spare. He was watching her with pure astonishment, brows up and lips parted just a little. That, combined with the fact that his hair was in complete disarray, warmed something in her chest.
No, it definitely wasn’t just physical.
And yes, she recognized the inherent risk that came with that. But, until that moment, she hadn’t fully understood the reward.
Slowly he drew his hand from beneath her skirt, which had rucked up over her lower abdomen. There was a web of clear fluid between his fingers that nearly took her out of it with self-consciousness, but before that could happen, Fred placed them between his lips and stared her down, like he was daring her to try and stop him. And the groan that rumbled through his chest as he tasted her turned any potential embarrassment to ardent lust.
She grabbed his hand and shoved it out of the way, leaning forward to taste herself on his tongue. Her hand was still on his erection, a fact she’d nearly forgotten until he twitched against it. Hermione pulled back just far enough to whisper between them again, a wicked smile curving her lips. “Let’s see if your cock is as good as your hand.”
Fred’s head tipped backward as he laughed and her smile turned to an out-and-out grin. Because wasn’t that what Fred Weasley was best at?
He hooked his arms under her bum, and she hastily gripped his shoulders as he turned them and then more or less threw her lengthways down the sofa, head landing on a mass of pillows against the arm.
Her legs were sprawled, and frankly a little sore from straddling him as long as she had, and Fred made to crawl over her, pausing to stare at her soaked cunt. The expression on his face was just short of tortured.
“I want to taste you again, I swear, but I’m pretty sure I’ll come in my trousers if I do,” he admitted, eyes flickering from her face and back down several times as he said it.
“Get me off like you just did, and I’ll sit on your face any bloody time you want,” she countered coyly, although it was the truth. If his mouth was half as skilled as his hands, she didn’t have any doubt it would be amazing.
He moved the rest of the way up until he was braced over her, one forearm beside her and the other leaning against the arm of the sofa over her head.
“Don’t say things like that if you don’t mean them, Hermione.” His voice took a serious edge and the expression from earlier that night flashed across his face again. “This is fun and all, really, but please just… don’t make promises.”
It was then that she realized what exactly that mysterious look on his face was; the one that tightened his jaw and put a crease between his brows.
You see, it seemed that Fred had put her in a box too. One that he’d labeled unrequited or untouchable or whatever rationalization he’d needed to in order to keep this feeling, whatever it was between them, at bay. Because, make no mistake, there was something between them.
“Why not?" She asked quietly, reaching a hand up to trace her fingertips over his cheek. His eyes dropped shut. "What makes you think that I don't mean it?"
“Because we’ve been drinking and it’s really late and this seems like a good idea now, but – “
She cut him off and shook her head, willing him to look at her again and fixing his gaze with hers when he did. “I’m not drunk, Fred. Even if I was, I’d still think you’re… I’d still want this. You. Because I did six months ago. And I did earlier this evening. And if you need me to tell you again in the morning, when I have horrid breath and it looks like a bird has been nesting in my hair, I will. Because they’re important words, and I mean them.”
He watched her silently for a long moment and then chuckled and exhaled, shaking his head. “I’m a little worried that this is a dream and I actually fell asleep on the sofa earlier.”
Hermione contemplated for a second and then reached around and pinched his bum as hard as she could between her thumb and knuckle, snorting inelegantly when he yipped and jumped.
“Bloody hell, witch!”
“Still think you’re dreaming?” She choked out over her laughter, promptly shutting up when he kissed her.
Then they were off to the races again. She began unbuttoning his shirt as quickly as her clumsy, lust-fueled fingers would allow, shoving it over his shoulders after conquering the last one.
Meanwhile Fred gripped the hem of her dress and pulled her into a half-seated position, leaning back on his heels and tugging it over her head before tossing it aside, along with her bra and his shirt. Then she was naked under him, not a thread or stitch in sight.
She thought Fred might have reconsidered his plan not to go down on her when he dipped his head, but then she felt warm lips brush against her hip and begin to track slowly up across her stomach and then over her ribs.
Hermione leaned back again and threaded her fingers through his hair as he paused at her breasts, spine arching when he reached between her thighs and thumbed her clit in a way that was astounding familiar given he’d only done it once before.
She heard the jingle of a belt buckle and then they both laughed quietly as he had to remove his hand to awkwardly shove his trousers and shorts down his legs, finally kicking them off and onto the floor with a triumphant ‘Ah-hah!’ Then he froze, rolled his eyes, and reached down to dig his wand out of the pocket to cast the contraception charm before discarding it again.
He crawled up until their noses were almost brushing and she wrapped her knees around his hips, cradling the warm, hard length of him tight against her core.
Need built in her stomach and weighted, scary words danced on the tip of her tongue. Words she’d thought, feared a little even, but had never said aloud. Not to him.
“Fred, I –“
“Shh,” he hushed, resting his forehead against hers and brushing their noses together. “Tomorrow. Tell me tomorrow.”
She smiled and nodded. “Alright, tomorrow.”
Then he reached down, coated his cock with her arousal, and fitted the blunt tip at her entrance.
Hermione made the last move, tightening her legs and pulling him down and into her. Fred hissed between his teeth, and she made a sort of undignified whimpering sound, trying to relax. He was big, bigger than she’d ever had before, bigger even than any of her toys, and taking him fully was a bit of a feat.
“Slow,” she pleaded, rocking her hips in little motions until he fully bottomed out, stretching her to her limit. Hell, maybe past her limit. “I need you to go slow, okay? Bloody hell...”
“Yeah, sure thing,” Fred said back in a clipped, strained tone, bobbing his head. Then he did as she asked, dragging almost completely out of her and pressing back in at an achingly slow pace. He repeated this twice more, the muscles of his shoulders and upper back straining and flexing beneath her hands as they roved.
“Okay,” she finally said, huffing out a breath when her body had finally adjusted some.
“Thank Merlin,” he half-laughed, half-groaned. Then he propped himself on one hand, gripped her thigh where it met her hip with the other, and fucked her.
Really, truly, fucked her. It was a good thing Harry’s house was so big and the bedrooms were two floors up, because the noises she was making were positively obscene. The way she gasped his name over and over, like a prayer, was just short of pornographic.
The friction of his pelvis connecting with hers, pressing against her clit again, had her on the edge again a matter of moments later.
“Don’t stop,” she begged, nails raking into his shoulders and slick sweat breaking out across her lower back and in the places their skin touched. “Please don’t stop.”
Fred continued in the same rhythm, dipping to kiss her and swallowing her cry just as another orgasm rocked through her. She was frenzied, fully in the moment and blindly determined to make him feel as good as she did.
She accomplished this, but it also led to a slight logistical miscalculation.
Hermione, mid-orgasm, shoved her hips upward, taking Fred as deep as she was capable and feeling him still as he began to climax along with her, fingers biting her skin deliciously where they dug in. The momentum of that movement, however, also sent them both careening over the edge of the sofa.
“Gah!” she yelped, gripping him like a cat in a tree as they fell onto the rug.
“Oof,” he breathed out in a huff, holding her tightly to him and taking the brunt of both their weights square on his back.
It’s of note that this all happened while he was still buried inside of her.
“Holy hell, are you okay?” She asked sitting back and pushing her hair out of her face, panting and searching for signs of injury as she ran her hands nonsensically over his chest and shoulders. Fred looked a little stunned, whether from the orgasm or the fall she didn’t quite know, but then he started laughing. Loudly. This went on for several long seconds while she silently worried that he’d hit his head and was having some sort of neurological episode.
“No,” he finally wheezed, reaching up and catching a curl she’d missed, twirling it around his finger as he shook his head. “No, I’m bloody well not okay, actually. I think I’m in love with you, which is only a little bit completely fucking terrifying.”
Hermione stilled, repeated what he’d said in her mind, and then smiled in spite of herself, squinting her eyes at him.
“I thought we weren’t saying things like that until tomorrow.”
He shrugged, flashing her the most Fred Weasley grin she’d ever seen.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to tell you again tomorrow.”
Tomorrow came all too soon. Hermione felt like she’d just fallen asleep when she blinked her eyes open, the sun filtering through the sheer drapes and directly into her face.
The first thing she was aware of was that she was on the floor in Harry’s drawing room.
The second was that she was naked
The third was that she wasn’t alone.
“Good morning,” Fred groaned, rolling over and snaring her around the waist.
It seemed that, in between the mind-boggling orgasms, they’d at least dragged the pillows off the couch, as well as a large throw blanket that normally resided on the chair in the corner.
“Good morning,” she replied, nuzzling into his chest and pulling the blanket up to her chin.
“Oi, you weren’t kidding about that morning breath,” he teased, grinning when she swatted him in the shoulder. But, morning breath and all, he leaned down and placed a quick kiss on her lips. Then he properly opened his eyes and, though they were squinted against the light, they began to search her face. “Any regrets?”
Hermione could tell he was nervous about what her answer might be, but he didn’t need to be. She firmly shook her head.
“Not at all, I meant everything I said,” she assured. She paused for a moment and then added with an arched brow, “Everything I did, too.”
The tension in his shoulders disappeared and he laughed under his breath, a deliciously throaty sound this early in the morning that she looked forward to hearing again and again.
“What about you?” She asked, stretching out against him like a cat. “Any regrets?”
Fred paused for a moment, eyes fixing in the distance over her shoulder like he was deep in thought.
“Just one,” he finally admitted, in response to which concern coursed through her. She leaned back to get a better look at his face.
“What is it?”
“That we didn’t go upstairs.”
His eyes stayed locked behind her, around the edge of the sofa, and Hermione pieced together what he’d said, finally rolling over to find that they apparently had an audience.
The range of expressions among their friends and family was reminiscent of a renaissance painting.
Harry’s was utter shock, and perhaps a little horror; Ginny looked like it was her birthday, wide-eyed and practically hopping in place; George, Lee and Angelina seemed to be silently exchanging galleons, George especially smug about it; Neville was pointedly examining the ceiling above them, though his cheeks were crimson; And finally Luna was just smiling dreamily, though Hermione noted she had twin red-purple marks on either side of her own throat that hadn’t been there the night prior.
“What the hell is everyone staring at?” Ron asked groggily, stumbling around the corner from the stairs and clutching his head. He stopped and blinked bleary eyes at the scene in front of him, at her and Fred naked and beneath a blanket on Harry’s rug. Then he groaned and rolled his eyes, turning to walk toward the powder room as he grumbled, “Bloody hell, I’m too hungover for this.”
Hermione turned to glance at Fred with raised brows. He just shrugged, looked back at their spectators, and raised a hand.
“’Morning!”