Chapter 6

Disclaimer: JKR owns everything, and I don't make any money with this story. The idea of the Marriage Law originated at WIKTT, I believe. I'm just borrowing...

a/n: AU since DH.

Chapter 6

Fred and Hermione's second night together brought no change to their sleeping arrangement. They fell asleep on opposite sides of the bed and awoke cuddled closely together with Hermione's head on Fred's chest.

The moment Hermione opened her eyes and realised where she was, a blush crept up her face. She tried to get up without stirring Fred, but found this to be impossible due to the tight grip he kept on her waist. There was nothing she could do to get free. In the end, her wriggling woke Fred up, and he let go of her.

"Sorry," Hermione mumbled, getting up quickly and keeping her head down so he wouldn't see her blush.

"Ah, don't you worry," Fred answered with laughter in his voice. "There are by far worse things that can happen to a wizard than waking up to find a pretty witch is using him for her pillow."

Hermione knew he was only teasing her, but all of a sudden his words brought tears to her eyes. She retreated into the bathroom before Fred could notice. The last couple of days had wreaked havoc on her emotions, and it had left Hermione completely confused and irrational.

She was unbelievably sad about her family's reaction, and the same held true for the Weasleys'. She had expected Ron to be upset, but never thought that her supposed relationship with Fred would cause so many people to be angry.

Hermione was grateful to have at least Harry's support. She felt guilty about forcing him to choose between herself and Ron, but found that there was nothing she could do about it. She would have liked to be noble and tell Harry that he shouldn't worry about her and that Ron was his best friend and he should comfort him. Except, Harry was the only friend she had left at the moment, and Hermione was sure that she couldn't go through with all of it without Harry's support. She couldn't afford to be noble.

Of course, there was Fred, who was acting ever so sweet and understanding. But that just served to confuse Hermione even more. Two months ago she had barely known Fred. Sure, they had gone to school together. She used to yell at the twins when they were abusing first-years for their experiments, and he was Ron's brother. Yet, they had never been friends, never had a conversation that didn't involve all the others, and Hermione's opinion of Fred had been confined to the troublemaking prankster everybody believed him to be. Truth be told, she hadn't even been able to tell Fred and George apart, both their physical appearance and their characters seeming identical to her.

That day in Professor McGonagall's office had been the first time she had been aware of Fred other than him being one part of the Weasley twins. Ever since then, she had come to realise that there was far more to Fred Weasley. Through their letters she got to know him a bit better, and the last few days brought them closer together. Hermione hadn't expected this and, consequently, was quite confused by the sudden shift in the dynamics between them.

She liked being close to him...emotionally as well as physically. She couldn't deny that. Her passionate reaction to their make-out session (the thought of it still made the heat rise in Hermione's cheeks) wasn't even the most confusing part of it all. After all, it could be explained away as being hormone induced. Fred Weasley wasn't exactly bad to look at, quite the opposite in fact, and it was only natural that she reacted to him.

No, that wasn't what had Hermione so terribly confused. It was that she liked the small things about Fred, like his hand on her shoulders when he tried to comfort her, his arms encircling her body when they hugged or just simply sitting close to each other on the couch and talking. It was comfortable, and it made her feel safe, despite all the trouble they were going through at the moment. They were in it together, and knowing that was comforting. And terribly confusing.

Hermione splashed cold water into her face and got ready for the day. When she exited the bathroom, Fred was still in bed, though he was awake and reading the Prophet.

"You okay?" he asked her, looking up from the pages.

That was another thing she hadn't expected. Fred was incredibly perceptive when it came to other people. She supposed it was a helpful trait for a prankster.

"Yeah," Hermione answered, albeit a little bit untruthfully.

Fred just shot her a look, revealing that he knew she was lying, but he didn't call her on it. Instead, he got out of bed and headed for the bathroom, stopping by her side for just a moment to give her a quick kiss on her cheek.

Hermione was quite stunned and stared at the now closed bathroom door for a full minute. She was confused...but she felt better.

***

They had breakfast together with George in the small kitchen of the twins' apartment. George seemed to have mostly forgiven them for keeping their relationship a secret. So, apart from the moment when Fred burned the toast, the meal went off without any drama. According to George, burned toast was a common occurrence when having breakfast with Fred.

Afterwards, the twins went down to their shop (after Christmas sales were going strongly), and Hermione settled down in the living room. Spreading her books around her, she pushed everything that troubled her out of her mind and concentrated on her studies.

That's how Fred found her at noon.

"I'm not sure if I should admire your drive or check you for brain-capacity expanding potions. Those are illegal, you know."

Hermione stuck her tongue out, but closed the book in front of her nonetheless.

"Some of us actually want to take our N.E.W.T.s."

"Are you sure? Cause that just seems like an awful waste of time to me," Fred answered.

Hermione shook her head and made to open her book again, but Fred grabbed her by her wrist and pulled her off the couch.

"No studying during lunch. Come on," he said. And without waiting for her to say something, Fred pulled Hermione with him out of the door.

"We usually eat our lunch down in the shop, so we can keep an eye on everyone at the same time," he explained while they walked down the stairs.

"There you guys are!" George yelled when Hermione and Fred entered one of the rooms in the back of the shop, which Hermione immediately recognised as the staff room. The room was packed with people, all of them wearing the bright magenta robes with the WWW emblem.

"We had to hire some temporary workers in order to cope with the workload during the time most pupils are at home," Fred told her, obviously trying to explain the rather large number of people present in the small room. Fred grabbed plates for them and then pushed his way through the crowd to the table in the middle of the room.

On top of the table was a huge pile of take out food. To Hermione it looked like somebody raided all the restaurants in Diagon Ally, the ones that were still open anyway. Snatching her plate from Fred, she helped herself to some food, taking her time to decide what she wanted to eat, and then looked around for a place to sit. All the chairs were already taken, and some people were actually sitting on the floor.

She spotted Fred, who, probably due to his status as boss, had been able to get a chair. He was currently in a conversation with George and one of their employees, whilst holding his plate in one hand and occasionally shovelling some food in his mouth. Hermione walked over to them and gave a polite cough, "hem, hem," which would have left Dolores Umbridge green with envy.

Both Fred and George immediately looked up, then grinned at her. Hermione used Fred's current state of surprise and sat down sideways on his lap. She didn't like eating on the floor.

Fred laughed. Hermione could barely hear the sound of it through the immense noise everyone was making, but she felt Fred's chest vibrating. She turned her head slightly, so she could see Fred's face and saw the amusement in his eyes. She smiled at him.

Fred brought his free hand behind her head and, to Hermione's surprise, pulled her in for a kiss. The kiss was light and tender, and Hermione could taste shepherd's pie off his lips.

"Some of us are actually trying to eat." George's comment made them pull apart.

"Jealousy doesn't become you, brother," Fred replied, but continued eating. George winked at Hermione and stuffed a piece of chicken into his mouth.

Hermione wriggled a bit on Fred's lap, so she could find a comfortable spot, and finally, leaning back against his chest, started to eat, too. Though she appeared calm on the outside, her insides were jumbled in a confused mess. Had Fred just kissed her to convince his brother that they were a couple? Or was there more to it?

She couldn't make up her mind. Furthermore, Hermione refused to analyse her decision to sit on Fred's lap (they had to pretend) or the feelings that shot through her body when he kissed her (hormones, of course). Still she couldn't deny that she was very comfortable.

***

Fred spent the remainder of the afternoon deep in thought. George noticed, of course. He flat out told Fred that if he were to start acting like a love-sick puppy, George would hex Fred's hair green and charm his nose to look like that of a pig's, so nobody would know they were related. Fred told him to 'sod off'.

After he had knocked over more items during one afternoon than Tommy Morgan did in a week and several of his employees had asked if he was okay, Fred went to the back of their shop to do inventory. At least, this way there would be nobody else around to witness his next mishap or ask stupid questions.

When Fred had counted their stock of Canary Creams for the third time, each time with a different result, he gave up on any pretence of work and sat down on the floor instead. Though he wasn't as shallow as everybody believed him to be, he wasn't overly pensive either. But he felt that a situation like this called for some pondering.

Fred blamed his current case of clumsiness on his lack of sleep. He had shared his bed with Hermione twice now, and both times he had fallen asleep ridiculously late because it was fairly difficult for him to relax next to her. She was just too damn attractive when she wore his clothes (for some reason unknown to him, Hermione had decided to keep wearing his shirt and boxers to bed, even though she had her own clothes at the flat now).

The attraction he felt towards Hermione had caught Fred entirely off guard. Having perceived her as nothing but his younger brother's brainy friend before, he had never paid close attention to her. Of course, that had changed once Professor McGonagall had informed Fred that Hermione was the girl he would be spending the rest of his life with.

Although Fred had never considered not helping Hermione, he had been less than thrilled at the prospect of marrying her at the beginning. It seemed obvious to him that they didn't have much in common and probably would get bored with each other quickly.

However, the opposite turned out to be the case. Fred was forced to admit the old saying "opposites attract" was not completely unfounded. He would never admit it at this point, but the kiss during lunch had been as much for his benefit as for the sake of keeping their ploy authentic.

Fred had been worried whether they would be able to convince George. If anyone would see through their farce, it would be his twin. But, so far, George appeared to have bought their story. Moreover, he seemed to have accepted that Fred and Hermione were a couple; unlike the rest of their family.

Fred had never expected this whole relationship... thing with Hermione would be easy, but, just like Hermione, he had been ill prepared for the anger it provoked in his family. He was more than a little hurt to see them side with Ron so easily. Of course, he would have felt extremely bad were he actually pursuing a relationship with his little brother's crush of his own volition. Still, he couldn't help but think that everybody else had no business yelling at him. Ron and Hermione hadn't even been dating!

Frustrated, Fred got up from the floor and started pacing. At least George had come around quickly. Fred couldn't have borne it if his twin had stayed mad at him. They had never had a fight that lasted longer than a couple of hours.

"Everything alright?" George poked his head through the door.

'Speak of the devil,' Fred thought.

"I'm fine," Fred said, though his frustration made the statement sound a lot harsher than he had intended. He saw the annoyance flash over his brother's face before George left. Fred felt even guiltier than before. Here he was, feeling grateful because George had forgiven him so easily, and then he had nothing better to do than snap at the one family member currently willing to speak to him. Maybe he should Floo Percy. Chances were the git was desperate enough for some contact to his family to talk to him.

"Are you okay?" The next person interrupted his solitary reverie with that inane question. Fred was about to shout back that he 'would be bloody fine when everybody stopped asking him stupid questions' when he saw that it was Hermione who stood in the door. So he refrained from shouting and continued to pace around the room.

He heard the door close, but didn't look up. The fact that he couldn't decide whether he wanted Hermione to be gone or not only served to antagonize him even more. Since when was he behaving indecisively around a girl?

"George said I should come and talk to you."

Fred considered killing his twin, but didn't answer. He couldn't explain the mood he was in, and he had never been one to talk about his 'feelings' anyway.

"I'm really sorry." Her last statement broke him out of his brood.

"Whatever are you sorry for?" Fred asked bewildered.

"It's all my fault, isn't it? If it weren't for me, your family would never be mad at you."

"Hermione, that's bull, and you know it. If anyone is to blame then it's You-know-who and those spineless idiots who follow him."

"But..."

"No buts, you didn't choose this, and therefore, it's not your fault."

"So you're not mad at me?"

"What? No!" Fred walked over to the spot near the door where she stood. He brought one of his hands under her chin and tipped her head up, so she would look at him.

"What gave you that idea?"

"Well, you're doing all this just to protect me ... and our families are so angry ... You wouldn't have to go through all of this if it weren't for me."

"This is not your fault," Fred repeated, all the annoyance gone from his voice. "I'm not mad at you."

"But you're not okay either."

Fred sighed. "No, probably not. But I'm going to be. We both will. Our families will come around eventually."

Hermione looked at him sceptically.

"Well, it might take some time," he amended. "Maybe a few years ... or several decades perhaps. Nevertheless, they are bound to miss us at some point, and then they'll come crawling on their knees, begging for forgiveness."

Hermione couldn't help but smile. Glad that he had managed to cheer her up, and feeling a bit cheerful himself (though firmly ignoring the question as to why Hermione was able to lift his gloomy mood with a single smile), Fred slung an arm around her shoulders, and they left the room together. On their way up to the flat, Fred saw his twin at the other side of the shop. He mouthed a silent 'sorry' and George nodded.

Fred and Hermione spent the evening in the living room, both of them reading and feeling quite thankful for the break in the mini-drama their lives had become. They went to bed early, feeling exhausted. Hermione opted to wear Fred's clothes again. Consequently, Fred found himself unable to fall asleep, regardless of his tiredness.

After lying in bed for about two hours, trying not to think about the witch next to him and feeling pretty ridiculous because of it, Fred was desperate enough to do anything, just to be able to fall asleep. He tried several methods of relaxation, all of which failed. As a final resort, Fred tried, by far, the oldest remedy for insomnia: counting sheep.

However, he soon found this to be boring, though unfortunately not boring enough to fall asleep.

Therefore, Fred tried to pep up the image a bit, and instead of counting sheep, which jumped over a gate, he imagined Professor Snape, hitching up his black cloak and jumping instead. Thinking that it was a bit far fetched that Professor Snape would be jumping over gates, Fred's overly tired mind conjured up a steaming cauldron.

He counted the 138th Snape, jumping over the cauldron, by the time he mercifully fell asleep.

tbc

a/n: Reviews are love.

Thanks go to my lovely betas Katia and Joey.