Chapter 11

POV Hermione

After Fred and George vanished Hermione took out the book list and sat down on George bed. She was actually sad that the list came so late she hadn’t had time to read any of the books she just hopes that they would go buy the books as soon as possible. Luckily, she was already finished packing her belongings in her trunk. Now that she was alone, she had time to actually process the information that Fred knew about her and George dating. She came to the conclusion that it wasn’t that bad that Fred knew. She was aware that it was only a matter of time before he found out. It had the positive effect that they had one less person they had to be extra careful around. After a few minutes she got up and joined the other one’s in Harry’s and Ron’s room.

After Mrs Weasley left the kitchen Hermione realised how tired she was. She was still talking with Ginny and Tonks, but she was a bit distracted after she saw the Twins going upstairs after talking to Mundungus and Harry. They still hadn’t returned. She decided to call it a day too. After she wished a goodnight to everyone she went upstairs. But she didn’t stop on the first floor she heard Mrs Weasley in the drawing room, but she carried on till she stood in front of the door of the Twin’s bedroom. She knocked and George opened the door.

“Come in before mom sees you.” Said George with a wide smile on his face.

She saw that the Twins had packed all their stuff in the meantime and that Fred was not in the room.

“Where is Fred? He wasn’t downstairs when I left.” Asked Hermione after she sat down on George’s bed.

“Why, would you prefer to be alone with him instead of me?” George said jokingly.

“Your funny” Hermione said dryly whilst rolling her eyes.

“I know, but I’m sure you’re not only here to tell me how funny I am.” said George and sat down next to her.

Even though they would sit pretty close together in the library Hermione got a bit nervous now that he was sitting so closely. She loved it though. His smell and his presence calmed her in a way Hermione couldn’t completely understand yet. She leaned her head at his shoulder. She didn’t know how they would do this at Hogwarts.

“You know, I usually really look forward to Hogwarts, but this time it's different. I don't know how we're going to do this whole dating thing at school. And I meant what I said before. I'll take my prefect duties seriously and punish you and Fred for breaking the rules if I have to.” Said Hermione while looking seriously up to George.

“Sure, you will, and we will find a way to make it work.” Said George and gave her a kiss on the forehead. And then he moved on to her lips.

Hermione once again had no idea for how long they sat on his bed and kissed like that. Being with him like this made her forgetting everything that was around her. It was like he was kissing her worries away. Hermione eventually had to pull away from him when she heard a noticeable ‘blop’ sound which announced Fred's return.

“Oh, I didn’t want to interrupt anything. Just pretend that I’m not here.” Fred said with a wide grin on his face.

Hermione shot one of her ‘are you serious’ looks to him and got up from George’s bed.

“I wanted to go anyway, good night you two, and remember I will punish you two if you break any rules at Hogwarts.” Hermione said and after carefully checking if anyone was outside in the hallway, she left the room and got to bed. Luckily, she didn’t run into anyone on her way down.

POV George

“We’re really sorry Ginny. It wasn’t our goal to hurt anyone.” George said to his little sister.

George, Fred and Ginny along with Lupin were walking to King’s Cross. George and Fred had charmed their trunks to float downstairs by themselves but unfortunately one trunk hit Ginny and she fell down two flights of stairs. George felt very bad for his sister. Their mother had to patch her up.

“I’m fine thanks to mum.” Ginny said.

When they arrived at King’s Cross everyone started to say their goodbyes. As this caused a great muddle, George took the liberty of hugging Hermione for fun when no-one was looking. He received a death stare from her in return, but it was worth it to him.

When the train finally set off and they were finished waving, Fred next to him said, “Well, we don’t have all day to stand around. We have business to discuss with Lee.” He and George left the other behind and searched for Lee.

They quickly found Lee and were happy to see that he had kept a compartment free for them.

“How was your summer, Lee?” Fred asked as they sat down opposite from Lee.

“It was okay I didn’t do much. How about you two.” Lee said.

“It was alright, we worked on some stuff. We haven’t written you about the Extendable Ears they are finally working like a charm.” Said George.

They carried on talking about the things they wanted to work on next, but George got distracted when he saw Hermione and Ron walking pass their compartment.

He was a bit sad that Hermione wasn’t sitting with him, but he had promised Fred that they would use the train ride to talk about the next steps they wanted to do to work on their project. And he knew that she wouldn’t want him to sit next to her anyways as she wanted to keep their relationship a secret. He just hoped that she will be ready soon to tell everyone who needs to know that they are together. He wanted to be able to sit next to her and kiss her whenever he wanted. But he knew that she wasn’t ready for that.

“George are you listening?” asked Fred.

George hadn’t realized that Fred and Lee had stopped talking. They must had asked him a question since they both stared at him.

“Uhm no I was distracted for a moment sorry what did you say.” George answered and ignored the 'oh I know who you were distracted by, and I find it amusing' look from his twin brother.

“We asked you if we should start with the advertisement for testers tomorrow or if we should wait for some time and do some more self-testing first.” Lee repeated for George.

“I think we have done enough self-testing let’s hang up a leaflet tonight and let’s do the first testing on Monday night.” George said.

“You can’t advertise for testers on the Gryffindor noticeboard”. Hermione said looking at him and his twin brother somewhat angrily.

Those weren’t the words George was hoping to hear first from Hermione on Monday morning. George and Fred had just sat down for breakfast.
Sadly, they hadn’t had time to talk much since they arrived at Hogwarts. But he was up to challenge her since he thought she looked really cute when she’s a bit angry.

“Says who?” said George with an astonished look on his face.

“Says me,” Hermione said still looking mad “and Ron”.

Even before Ron said “Leave me out of it” George knew that his little brother had no problem with it. This made him smile even wider. Especially since Hermione shot Ron a ‘I will kill you’ look.

“You will come crawling back to us in no time Hermione.” Fred said.

“And why would I do that?” Hermione asked doubtfully.

“Fifth year’s OWL year” George answered her.

“So?” Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow.

From here written by hand

“So, you will be torment with a lot of homework and extra preparation for the OWL’S” Fred answered her.

After dinner Fred and George were excited for their first testing of their products. They decided to ignore Hermione’s comment and she just said that they are not allowed to advertise the testing she said nothing about doing them.

To their surprise quite a lot first years gathered around them.

“So George with what are we gonna start?” Fred asked him loudly so all the first years around them could hear them.
His brother had a wide smile on his face. He seemingly had no worries about Hermione. Unlike him. He saw her sitting in the corner along with Harry and Ron. George just hoped that she would be so busy with homework that she would forget everything around her and not notice them.

“We’re going to test some Fainting Fancies.” George replied and tried to look as enthusiastic as his brother.

It all went well till it didn’t they just had given all the first years the first part of the Fainting Fancies when George suddenly heard “That’s enough”. Low on behold it was Hermione who had come over and as George turned around, he saw that she wasn’t happy at all. She stood her with crossed arms. Her eyes were narrowed a bit.

“But they are fine” George said and took a step to her.

Lee was now walking around and put the other half of the candy in their mouth. One after the other woke up.

“Look Hermione no one came to harm.” Fred said and tired to put on a trustworthy smile. It didn’t work as Hermione wasn’t impressed by their words at all.

“I told you both this morning that you were not allowed to do those tests.”
George saw how Fred had to hold back to not tell Hermione that she actually just said that they were not allowed to advertise for it.
“And you chose to ignore me and do it anyways. I promise you if this ever happens again I’m going to”
In this moment Fred couldn’t hold back his laughter and asked, “What are you going to let us write lines or something.” Those words were a mistake as George saw the anger in Hermione’s eyes.

“I’m going to write to your mother.”

George was speechless and just took a step back from her.

“You wouldn’t” Fred said the betrayal noticeably in his voice.

“Oh, I would believe me.” Hermione said before she snatched the bag out of George’s hand and quickly went back to her place.

POV Hermione

Hermione soon had to realize that the twins weren’t wrong when they said that the fifth year would be harder than any other year. She had so much homework and on top of that she wanted to keep up with knitting hats for the house elves. It was only Wednesday but she was already felling overwhelmed a bit by all the work she had to do. Especially since she seemed to be the only one stressing so much about it. Harry was in detention, so he had no other choice, but she hadn’t seen Ron at all after dinner. She looked around the common room again as to check if he really wasn’t anywhere. Maybe he was just hiding from her or something.
It was close to curfew therefor Hermione decided to start her round to remind any students who were still outside of their common room that they should go back there.

She was just turning around the last corner before the common room when George nearly ran into her.

“Here you are, I was looking for you.” George said with his usual smile on his face.

Hermione was still a big angry and she hadn’t talked with him since Monday night. But now that he was so close to her, she suddenly forgot about all her anger.

“Yeah, well you found me - I was doing my walk around, it’s nearly curfew you know.” Hermione said before George took her at the hand and lead her to a bit hidden niche. He was shielding her from the hallway and tilted his head down to her face.
“May I” He whispered, and Hermione was only able to nod. He smiled and then he put his lips on hers. She didn’t want to admit that she missed that feeling since she officially still was mad at him for the whole testing on first year’s thing, but she did miss that feeling. Sadly, that feeling didn’t last long as they were interrupted way too soon for Hermione’s likings.

“Fred or George what are you doing here?” Hermione recognised Ginny’s voice and she froze. ‘fuck’ was all Hermione could think and she saw that George must think the same.

George slowly turned around to look at his sister who luckily was alone. He tried to shield Hermione, but it was too late. Ginny saw Hermione.

“What are you doing here with George Hermione?” Ginny asked with a raised eyebrow.

Hermione stepped next to George as there was no reason anymore to try hiding behind George’s back.

“Would you believe me if I said fighting?” Hermione asked hesitantly.

“No” Ginny answered quickly.

“Well” Hermione started but she was still searching for words. George apparently had no problem finding his words.

“Well Ginny if you have to know we were kissing till someone rudely interrupted us.” He said that and shoved his hands in his pockets. Hermione tried to hit him with her elbow, but he didn’t even flinch a bit.  

“I kind of figured that you two didn’t just stand in that niche for nothing but why were you doing that?” Ginny asked ignoring George’s accusation about being rude.

“We’ve been together since the summer.” George casually answered.

“You are What” Ginny asked her mouth was now standing a bit open, “Why haven’t you told me?”

This question finally freed Hermione from her paralysis. “We haven’t told anyone except Fred but he kind of guessed it and we didn’t deny it. I don’t want everybody to know especially Ron you know how he would react.” Hermione said and was happy to see that Ginny seemingly wasn’t angry.

“Oh yeah I would hold this information away from Ron as long as possible he would freak out.” Ginny said with a grin on her face. “Well Hermione you will have to tell me everything as soon as possible.” Ginny said before she turned around and proceeded her way to the common room.

“Well that was unlucky” George said as soon as Ginny was out of sight.

“We will have to be more cautious now. And we probably should return to the common room now. I still have no idea where Ron is. Have you seen him?” Hermione said and was about to reach for George’s hand to pull him out of the niche when she heard some footsteps. In a reflex she pushed George back into the niche and a second later she heard Ron saying.

“Hermione what are you doing here alone?”

“Nothing I was just about to finish my round. What are you doing here? You were supposed to do those rounds with me, remember!” Hermione said and started to walk towards the common room. Ron mumbled something that Hermione couldn’t understand but she wanted to get away from this niche as soon as possible before Ron noticed anything.