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Better Days
It was hot. Not just hot, but hot hot. Launched into the middle of the sun hot. Hermione sat on a blanket in the shade of an enormous ash tree that provided little relief from the boiling August day. She cast yet another cooling charm that would wear off in approximately thirty seconds before tossing her vine wand next to her with a huff.
The orchard next to the Burrow really was very beautiful, with apple trees winding in crooked rows over roughly five acres. Ash trees, like the one she was sitting under, were dotted along the landscape, here long before the orchard existed. The branches of the apple trees were heavy with fruit, bowing toward the ground, fragrant blossoms making the air sweet. Normally, Hermione loved being here, lounging under the trees with a book, or just sitting and talking with her friends. It was just so bloody hot
Above the trees, said friends flew through the air on their brooms, throwing a quaffle between them, an occasional crack as one of the twins whacked the bludger with a club. It was an odd group that had come together in the five years since the war had ended. Evidenced by the fact that Pansy Parkinson was laying on her own cashmere and lambs wool blanket just a few feet away. Hermione watched her for a moment, sleek black hair fanned out around her, eyes closed behind a pair of huge sunglasses, and wondered how she managed to look cool. Hermione felt like she was melting like an ice lolly clenched in a toddler’s fist.
“I can feel you staring, Granger,” Pansy drawled, not bothering to move at all.
“Sorry-”
“No you’re not.”
Hermione paused. She really wasn’t. “How are you so cool?”
“If only that were a question you had asked me in first year. It would have saved you from such a tragic teenaged social life.” There was a slight quirk to Pansy’s mauve painted lips. They both know what would have happened if Hermione had tried to speak to Pansy in first year.
“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” Hermione’s eyes rolled almost violently.
Pansy pushed up on an elbow and slid the sunglasses down her upturned nose. She gave Hermione a once over, raising an eyebrow at Hermione’s sweaty, disheveled appearance. Before Hermione could blink, Pansy’s wand was aimed at her and then blessed coolness washed over her, ten times stronger than the cooling charm she’d been casting all afternoon.
Four years ago, being on the other end of Pansy Parkinson’s wand would have been cause for panic. Hermione would have been scrambling for her own wand next to her, taking a defensive position. That was before Pansy had fallen in love with Ron Weasley.
Like most students that would be returning to Hogwarts for the summer term of ‘99, Hermione, Ron, and Harry had volunteered to help rebuild the crumbling castle after it had been destroyed during the final battle with Voldemort. Pansy had been assigned to do the very same thing as part of her probation for her miniscule role in the war. Which really had come down to nothing more than her knee-jerk panicked desire to turn Harry over while being threatened by the darkest wizard known to wizarding history. Nothing more than the actions of a scared girl.
Over the months it had taken to rebuild the castle, Ron and Pansy had gone from hurling insults at each other, to annoyed silence, to reluctant friends. Then, finally, Harry had caught them together in the old Gryffindor common room, doing things Harry was too embarrassed to repeat.
Hermione had thought she would be upset. It had, after all, not been too terribly long since she and Ron had decided they were better off as friends. But she wasn’t. The feeling she had was closer to the warmth that she imagined she would feel over seeing a younger brother find happiness.
“That’s… amazing,” Hermione breathed, closing her eyes in bliss for a moment. “You have to teach me that.” Whatever charm Pansy had used was sticking.
“Maybe,” Pansy lay back down, sunglasses back in place.
Just then there was a loud whoop! as the others began to fly back to the ground, touching down one by one between the swaying apple trees. Most of the guys were bare chested and sunburnt, even Ginny and Angelina were down to just a sports bra and shorts, Fred and Draco the only two still wearing shirts.
The group was all smiles as they began making their way over to where Hermione and Pansy were sitting. Harry was talking to Fred, the two throwing playful elbows at each other while George and Angelina followed, lost in their own world. Theo Nott had an arm curled around Ginny’s shoulders, pressing his grinning face to her hair while Draco Malfoy stuck close to him like a shadow. Ron made a beeline for Pansy who gracefully rose from her blanket, stepping into the circle of his sweaty arms without hesitation, leaning her forehead to his chest. Ron dropped a kiss to the crown of Pansy’s head.
“Alright, Granger?” Theo asked, still wrapped around Ginny like a barnacle.
After months of arguments and tears and nearly ended friendships, Ginny and Harry had split about a year after the war. It had taken a few years after that for the two of them to be in the same room with each other, and in that time Ginny had met Theo Nott through Pansy. Ginny had fallen hard and fast, and Theo reciprocated with enthusiasm.
“We didn’t maim each other, if that’s what you’re asking,” Pansy drawled, turning away from Ron and toward them. Malfoy stayed silent, a step away from the group.
The small hitch with welcoming Theo and Pansy into the fold was that they came as a package deal with Draco Malfoy. This had gone over with mixed results, ranging from Angelina nearly hexing him for the incident with Katie back in sixth year, to Molly Weasley plying Draco with so much food he looked sick every time he left the Burrow.
After Malfoy’s two-year stint in Azkaban, he returned a quieter version of the bully they had all grown up with. Things were improving, though. The odd group grew closer by the day, the hostility of the past giving way to something better.
Every time Hermione had seen Malfoy since the end of the war, his left forearm was covered by tightly wound bandages.
Harry, Fred, George, and Angelina finally caught up with the rest of them. George and Angelina were leaning against each other in laughter as Fred caught Harry in a headlock, the younger boy giving an indignant squawk.
“Take it back, Potter!” Fred yelled playfully, rubbing his free hand over Harry’s already messy hair.
“Never!” came Harry’s slightly squashed voice.
The two thrashed around in circles, the Quidditch group laughing at an argument that Hermione and Pansy hadn’t been a part of. Harry began pushing at Fred’s ribs, making Fred tighten his hold as they spun around again.
It was then that Hermione had spotted it.
There and gone again in just a flash.
Fred’s soft gray shirt rode up just a bit, and Hermione saw the end of something brilliant blue inked against his pale, freckled skin.
***
Hermione couldn’t stop thinking about it.
It had been a week since the Quidditch game, and Hermione was back at the Burrow again for Sunday dinner. The long, scrubbed wooden table groaned under a mountain of roast chicken and potatoes and yorkies. The kitchen was warm not just from the heat of the cooker, but from the affection that everyone in the room had for each other.
Fred was seated directly across from her, and Hermione knew that she was staring. That little flash of blue had played on an endless loop through her mind all week. She tried to blame it on boredom, if only to keep herself from admitting that she’d been mildly obsessed with the man that blue was attached to for the past several years.
It wasn’t a thing. Hermione just really respected the person Fred Weasley had grown into since the end of the war.
After a brick wall had exploded and collapsed on top of Fred during the final battle, it was only thanks to Percy that he had survived at all. Quick thinking, and an even quicker cushioning charm had absorbed most of the crushing weight of the mountain of stone. It was still bad, though. Shattered bones, ruptured organs, a cracked skull. Fred had nearly died. That wasn’t even true. Fred had died. Officially, for two minutes. Laying in the Great Hall amongst the wounded Fred’s heart had stopped, and it had taken all of Poppy Pomphrey’s efforts to bring him back.
The coma had lasted weeks. Molly, Arthur, and George had held vigil in St. Mungo’s, and they’d all shed tears of joy when he’d finally woken with a muttered “what’s with all the long faces?”.
Fred was a more serious person after. Of course, he was still Fred- cracking jokes and causing mayhem, but all of his boyish innocence was gone. He and George had thrown themselves into building their joke-shop empire even harder than they had before, and had just last year opened a second location in Hogsmeade that Ron managed.
Fred and Percy had come out of the situation with a deep kind of relationship that Percy had never had with any of his other siblings.
Hermione just admired Fred. The resilience he’d shown throughout his recovery, and the way he… and she was staring again.
This time Fred had caught her, meeting her eyes with a raised brow, still in conversation with Percy who sat on Fred’s left. Hermione felt a deep blush crawl across her face and busied herself with shoveling mashed potatoes into her mouth.
Later, after the meal was finished, Hermione found herself walking her plate to the sink alongside Fred. Hesitating for a just moment, Hermione couldn’t stop herself.
“You have a tattoo?”
“Was that a statement or a question?” Fred asked, leaning a hip against the bench, looking down at her.
“What is it?” Hermione hesitated at the sink, not really wanting to face him. Fred was good at reading people. One look at her face and he’d probably know all about her fascination.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he teased, flicking the ends of her hair before leaving the kitchen.
Yes. Yes she really would.
***
Why wouldn’t he just tell her?
Hermione sat at her desk, slightly stewing. If he had just told her what the stupid tattoo was, she wouldn’t still be obsessing over it. Fingernails tapped against the slightly worn wood, staring off at nothing. It was blue, she knew that much. And it had kind of a swoop on the bottom? Hermione’s imagination was running wild. Something to do with water, maybe?
Suddenly a hand was rapping on her desk, startling Hermione out of her daydreams. “Hullo, earth to Hermione.”
She looked up to find Harry standing in front of her, and Hermione’s stomach dropped when she realized that she had forgotten their lunch plans.
At twenty three, Hermione worked at the ministry along with both Harry and Ron. While they had gone through the grueling process to become aurors, Hermione had found herself drawn to the department of magical education. How much easier could her life have been if muggleborns were properly assimilated into the wizarding world when they started at Hogwarts? If muggle studies was reformed and made mandatory for all students to show that there really was no difference between them outside of the fact that witches and wizards had evolved to have magical ability? Hermione was still just a junior in the department, but she was determined to work her way up and finally be able to initiate actual change. Something that would hopefully make the journey of the next generation of muggleborn’s just that much better.
“I’m sorry, Harry. Lost track of time.” Hermione straightened one of the lesson plans that Professor Flitwick had submitted for the upcoming school year before rising from her desk.
They sat at one of the many round tables in the cafeteria that was just off the atrium. Hermione poked at her plate of overcooked pasta, still unable to focus. Maybe the tattoo was a flower of some type?
“Seriously, what is going on with you?” Harry asked through a mouthful of turkey sandwich.
“Nothing,” Hermione said quickly, trying to pay attention to her friend. A bit of mustard was smudged onto his chin. Hermione handed him a napkin, but Harry just set it aside. Wait, Harry might actually know. He was still an investor in Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, and he spent a lot of time around the twins… “Harry, do you know what Fred’s tattoo is?”
Harry looked up at her, blinking behind his glasses. “Fred has a tattoo?”
Oh.
“Never mind, then.”
***
Hermione walked through Hogsmeade, early September breeze ruffling the skirt of her light dress. She had wanted to return Flitwick’s lesson plans in person, stopping in on a few of her favorite professors as they prepared for the upcoming term. Then, on a whim, had decided to grab a drink at the Three Broomsticks, for old times sake.
The old wizarding village was as charming as ever, with its crooked little hatch-roofed buildings and cobblestone streets. Even though school wasn’t in session yet, children swarmed Honeydukes, buying candy by the arm load while parents looked on, already dreading the sugar crash that was sure to come later. She was passing in front of a closed WWW, when the door suddenly swung open and Fred Weasley stepped directly into her path. Hermione ran into him with a bodily oof, stumbling back a few paces but Fred grabbed her elbow with a steady hand.
“Hullo there, Hermione,” he said. Hermione craned her neck back, staring up at him, trying to get her suddenly racing heart beat under control. Brilliant blue, almost as blue as his eyes… “I’m glad to run into you. Literally. What are you doing in Hogsmeade?”
His voice was not helping the heart situation.
“Just, uh-” Hermione cleared her throat, taking a step back. “Just going for a drink.”
Fred grinned down at her, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Mind if I join you?”
Oh Merlin. “Yeah, sure, no problem,” she replied quickly.
Her tone didn’t affect him in the slightest. “Great! Hogs or Broomsticks?”
Fred gestured for her to start walking first, then fell into step just behind her. Their elbows brushed and Hermione felt like every nerve in her arm came alive at once. “Broomsticks,” she said. “Definitely Broomsticks.”
Hermione found a table for them as Fred went to charm drinks from Madam Rosmerta. She let the cool air inside the pub wash over her, and Hermione forced herself to relax a bit. It was just Fred. She’d known Fred for twelve years. Just because she thought he had nice arms and couldn’t stop thinking about a tattoo she hadn’t even really seen yet didn’t mean that she couldn’t make it through a drink with him.
“Here we are darling,” he said, setting her cider down on the table. Fred’s long fingers lingered around the glass, dragging lines through the condensation. Hermione’s eyes lingered on his hand and she really, really needed to get a grip. Fred seemed amused when she looked at him, but Fred almost always seemed amused.
Hermione took a flustered drink before setting her glass down and blurting, “Seriously, what is it?” Her voice was louder than intended and several other patrons turned to look at them. Hermione flushed red, but Fred grinned.
“What’s what?”
“You know.” When Fred just smiled wider, Hermione huffed. “Your tattoo.”
Suddenly Fred’s smile dropped, and so did Hermione’s stomach. Oh no. The last thing she’d wanted to do was upset him. Why did she always have to be so…
“Alright,” Fred sighed dramatically. “I’ll tell you. When me and Georgie were babies, mum kept mixing us up so she had me marked so she could tell us apart.”
Hermione’s mouth fell open.
“I know, I know. Have you ever heard something so tragic?”
“Fred Weasley, I know that’s not true!”
The serious expression was broken by a laugh, and Fred slapped the table, jostling their drinks. “I know, but you should have seen your face.”
“Why won’t you tell me?” Hermione could hear the pout in her voice, and could’ve kicked herself.
Fred gave her a somewhat steady look, drinking from his pint. “Because one person can’t know everything. Too much information and that little head of yours will pop. Trust me when I say cracked skulls aren’t fun.” His tone was teasing, but Hermione felt like she couldn’t breathe for a second.
“I don’t know everything,” she said, once she could. “My head is not little, and don’t joke about that.”
“That’s why I’m not telling you,” he shot back, leaning towards her. Those long fingers still wrapped around his glass. “I beg to differ. And it’s my near death experience, I can joke about it if I want to.”
He was right. Hermione knew he was right. She just didn’t like the reminder.
“I’m sorry, I-”
“Don’t apologize. Do you like me?”
Hermione was shocked into silence. “W-what?” she finally managed.
“Not to sound like Ginny in second year. But do you like like me?”
Now, Hermione prided herself on being a very practical, put together person. She’d faced down insane witches, werewolves, and three headed dogs. Hermione Granger did not get flustered. She was absolutely lying to herself.
Heat that had barely gone away immediately bloomed across her face. “I-I don’t, why would you even-”
“I mean,” Fred leaned even further across the table, elbows practically in the middle. His voice was low. “I kind of hope so. I’ve had a thing for you since I was in seventh year.”
Hermione used to spend the night at her grans house when she was little. Gran had an old telly, the kind that went all black and white fuzzy when nothing was playing on it. Hermione would press her hands against it and let the static electricity flood into her hands, and would imagine that's what magic felt like.
That was kind of what Hermione’s brain was doing at the moment. All black and white fuzzy.
She gulped audibly. Butterflies erupted in her belly. “I- yes. Yes I do.”
“Brilliant!” Fred let his hands drop to the table with another smack. “What do you want to do about it?”
Hermione was almost immediately annoyed with him again. It was a special talent Fred had- make her swoon one moment, and scowl the very next. “What do you mean do about it?”
“Hows about a date?” Fred pushed his hair off his forehead, blue eyes sparkling. “My place on Saturday? I’ll even cook.”
“That-” Hermione huffed a bit. “That sounds great, actually.”
***
Saturday found her climbing the stairs to the flat above WWW for the first time in years. Was she really going to have a date with Fred Weasley? She couldn’t deny the fact that she liked him anymore. Hermione didn’t think that you could think about one person as much as she thought about Fred and not feel something. Not that she had ever had to deny it to anyone but herself. No one else had ever even suspected, until Fred himself.
The door opened before she could knock. Fred stood in jeans and a green and orange striped shirt, mismatched socks on his feet. Hermione was glad that she had decided to not dress up- she would have felt out of place in anything but her own jeans and yellow shirt.
“Hullo,” he greeted, ushering her inside. The flat smelled wonderful, and Hermione felt hopeful for the first time over eating something that Fred Weasley had prepared.
“Hello. Are you going to tell me what it is now?”
“What what is?” Fred pushed the door shut with his foot.
“Fred!” Hermione spun around in the middle of the sitting room.
He just laughed. “Is this date just a big ploy to trick me into telling you?”
“Of course not!” She began making her way through the flat again. The sitting room led to a narrow hallway with a galley kitchen at the end of it. Two bedrooms were on either side of the hall- Fred’s on the right, George’s now empty room on the left.
“Alright, alright. I’ll tell you,” he followed Hermione down the hallway. “It’s a full portrait of our lord and savior, Mr. Harry Potter.”
“Fine!” Hermione threw her hands in the air, then dropped into one of the rickety kitchen chairs. “Don’t tell me!”
“I told you I wasn’t going to, darling.”
Hermione fell into a somewhat petulant silence. Fred moved over to the ice box, the old hinges squeaking as he pulled a small platter from it. She sat up, looking curiously at what he was bringing to the table.
“Is that-? Did you make aguachile?” she asked, eyeing the sliced shrimp, red onion, and cucumber that had been artfully arranged on the plate. The smell of serrano peppers and lime tickled her nose. Hermione had first tried the dish when she’d gone on holiday with her parents to El Fuerte in Mexico, where she had first fallen in love with spicy food. Fred set the platter in the middle of the table, and fetched what appeared to be freshly made tostadas from the bench. “How did you know?”
“I heard you talking to Harry about how much you liked it. And since Harry has the palette of a saltine cracker, I knew that he wouldn’t have eaten anything like this with you, and, well, I’m not afraid of a bit of spice,” Fred finished with an honest-to-Merlin wink.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone wink in real life,” Hermione said, laughing past the sudden lump in her throat. Fred winked again.
The silence they fell into as they ate would have been awkward with anyone else, but Hermone didn’t think that Fred Weasley even comprehended the idea of awkwardness. Hermione relished the burn on her tongue and in the back of her throat, and smiled when Fred started to sweat a little, eyes watering.
“This is really good. Very authentic.”
“Thanks,” Fred coughed, red faced.
After, they stood at the sink together, washing up the muggle way. Hermione rinsed a plate, sliding it onto the rack, before asking, “Since your seventh year?”
From the corner of her eye, she could see Fred smile. “It was during the DA. Something about someone like you breaking all of the rules just really got me going.”
Hermione almost got her back up and asked what he meant by someone like her, but she knew that he was right. “I guess I just can’t stand calculated incompetence.” She tightened her fingers around a glass, thinking of Umbridge and her stupid toad face.
“Or bullies, or injustice, or oppression. You’re a straight up hero.” Fred nudged her with an elbow, and Hermione shivered at the contact.
“Harry’s the hero,” she said, slightly uncomfortable with the praise.
“Please,” Fred snorted. “Like he and my sweet baby brother wouldn’t have been worm food ten times over if it weren’t for you.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked, redirecting the conversation.
“Because of Ron, I guess.” Fred switched off the tap, turning to lean against the bench. The front of his shirt had a damp spot from the dish water. “You guys seemed to be on a pretty straight path toward… something.”
“Ron’s been with Pansy for years, though.”
Fred sighed a little, reaching out to flick the ends of her hair with still-wet fingers. “I was kind of busy not dying, Hermione. And then recovering from all of the not dying.”
Suddenly, she felt awful. The scar on her arm itched a little, and Hermione thought of the nights she still woke up gasping, the sharpness of the cursed knife buried in her flesh still vivid all of these years later. Of course he had other things to be getting on with.
“Don’t apologize,” he said before she could even start. “We’re here now, right? I like you, and you like me. That’s all that matters. And I’m going to kiss you now, if you don’t mind.”
She didn’t.
Hermione found herself between the wet kitchen bench and Fred’s long body, his hands on either side of her face and his mouth moving against hers. It was kind of odd, the way every inch of her skin seemed to come alive in that moment. Hermione could feel everything- the air against her, the dampness soaking into the back of her shirt, each of his individual finger tips snaking into her hair as Fred angled his head and deepened the kiss. Hermione found that her hands were fisted into the front of his shirt without her giving them permission to move. They broke apart, gasping.
“Will you tell me what your tattoo is now?”
“Get out,” Fred said with a laugh, before leaning down to kiss her again.
***
The thing was, Hermione and Fred hadn’t told his family or any of their friends that they were seeing each other. The weeks between their collision in Hogsmeade and where they were currently, eating take away in Hermione’s flat, had been filled with dates, snogging, and ridiculous little notes that Fred would send while she was at work.
I like you, and it’s getting worse, one said, a violet paper aeroplane landing on her desk.
If you were a fruit, you’d be a fine-apple, said another.
How he was managing to send her interdepartmental memos all the way from his shop in Diagon Alley was beyond her. Fred Weasley treated the limits of time and space the way he treated all rules- suggestions at best, obstacles at worst.
The tone of conversation now was a bit more serious.
“It was kind of like being in a long dream that I couldn’t wake up from.” Fred was leaning forward on her sofa, elbows on his knees. He had a container of pasta in one hand, fork in another, but he’d stopped eating. “I remember thinking, any second now, I’m gonna wake up and I’ll get to see George, mum and dad and the rest. The real them, not just the ones that live in my head. And then I did wake up, and everything hurt, but I didn’t for a second wish I was back out again.”
Next to him, Hermione sat with her legs curled under her, her own dinner also forgotten. She wasn’t even really sure how they’d gotten here. One moment they were trying to pick a movie to watch, the next thing she knew, they were trading war traumas.
“I remember thinking,” she said, leaning forward to set her food on the coffee table, “that it didn’t seem right. You being so still. You’re never still. I hated it.”
Fred reached over to rest a hand on her knee, a bit of sauce from his fork dripping onto her joggers. “After I got out of Mungos, when I was staying at the Burrow, I couldn’t shower with the lights on.” She didn’t have to ask him why. Hermione still hadn’t seen him without a shirt, despite the fact that he’d seen her stark naked by that point.
“I wore nothing but long sleeves for two years,” she told him, and they both looked at her right forearm. Mudblood.
Suddenly, a lightning strike to the brain. For all that people liked to call her the brightest witch of the age, Hermione could be a little dim sometimes.
“Your tattoo, is it… Does it have to do with the…” she didn’t know how to say it. But Fred just nodded. No wonder he didn’t want to share it. Hermione felt like a giant arsehole.
“Don’t apologize,” he said, before she could even start. Hermione flushed.
“Fine then. But I will say, that I won’t care. I mean, I care, but I won’t care. If you want to show me.”
Hermione knew it would never be that easy. She remembered Fred from school, always flying around the Quidditch pitch without a shirt on, confident and proud of his body. It kind of killed her to see how much the war had taken from him, but Hermione knew it would take time and patience for him to lower that barrier. Fred quirked a little grin.
“You just want to get me naked.”
“Yes, yes I do.”
***
September had melted into October and Hermione was naked on her back in Fred Weasley’s bed. She was trying but failing to catch her breath, toes uncurling as Fred loomed over her, wiping his chin on the shoulder of his shirt.
After a few moments, through the brain fog, Hermione realized that Fred wasn’t moving. She forced her eyes open, and found him still kneeling between her legs, a somewhat funny look on her face.
“What’s wrong?”
Fred just shook his head. Then he reached behind him, and pulled his shirt off, leaving Fred in just a pair of loose shorts. Hermione held her breath. She knew that what she did in the next few seconds could change everything.
It was a lot. It was obvious that the healers at Mungos had done what they could to reduce the scarring, but they’d prioritized his life before anything else. Pockmarked scars littered his torso, crawling from his right shoulder down ward, covering nearly every inch of skin. A twisted mass of scars on his side drew her attention, but only because of what curled around it. There. There was that bright blue.
Hermione forced herself to give him a soft smile, trying not to cry at the hesitation that Fred wore on his face. She reached out slowly, and covered the tattoo with her palm, pushing lightly. Fred could read her like a book and knew what she wanted. He rolled on to his back, and watched as she crawled naked onto his lap.
It was a magpie. Bright and dark blue and white blended together into a long plume of tail feathers that curled under the bottom edge of the biggest scar. The bird was mid-flight, realistic enough Hermione half expected it to begin flying around his torso.
“It’s your patronus, isn’t it?”
Fred nodded. “As soon as I could cast it again, I got that. It felt like I was finally starting to get better.”
Hermione stroked her thumb over one of the pointed wings, before leaning down to place a light kiss there. Fred’s stomach jumped at the contact.
Then she crawled up his body, and they lost themselves for a little while.
***
It was cold. Maybe not cold cold, but cold enough that Hermione and Pansy had blankets wrapped around themselves as they watched the rest of the group get ready for Quidditch in the orchard.
Fred and Hermione had finally revealed their relationship to their friends and family a few weeks ago, and they were both almost slightly offended over how unsurprised everyone was.
The trunk with the equipment shook as the bludger grew restless. Theo kicked it open with the toe of his trainer, and threw the quaffle at Ron who caught it one handed with a grin.
“Is that a challenge, Nott?”
“You know it, Weasley.”
Despite the chill, the guys began to strip off their shirts, tossing them to the ground in a pile. Hermione watched Fred where he was talking to George, and saw his shoulders straighten. Then, he did something that not even Hermione expected.
Fred walked away from George and over to Malfoy, clapping a hand on the very surprised man’s shoulder. “Come on, mate. I’ll do it if you will,” he said, before pulling his shirt off. Hermione held her breath, waiting for a reaction, and let it out slowly when there wasn’t one.
Malfoy was wide eyed as Fred took a step back. After a moment, he just shook his head. “Nice ink, Weasley,” was all he said, and held his hand out for his broom.
“In your own time, then.” Fred turned and tossed his shirt to Hermione, who managed to catch it. He gave her one of those grins that never failed to make her inside flutter, then reached for his own broom and bat. Hermione watched them all take to the air, drawing the soft fabric into the cocoon of her blanket.
“Nice job bagging the second hottest Weasley,” Pansy said, conjuring a thermos of hot cocoa that Hermione knew she would pretend to not want to share, but would force a cup into Hermione’s hands anyway.
Hermione buried her smile in the blanket, and knew that there were better days ahead of them.