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sarisiaI can't believe that I didn't post this here. I talked about it oh-so long ago, but it would've been so much nicer if I'd just put it here for people to see. :P Well, fixed that.
Title: Making a Believer
Rating: PG
Genre: General, Romance
Summary: It's post-Hogwarts, Christmas time. Voldemort has been defeated and love is beginning to blossom between Harry and Hermione, but Fred refuses to see it. George and many others help him to see the truth.
Dedicated to Felinephoenix and everyone else on the HMS Pumpkin Pie, who helped me to believe this couple was possible.
It was a beautiful Christmas morning. Waves of snow had piled across the ground, but that hadn't hindered the Weasley family, nor Hermione, nor Harry, nor other members of Dumbledore's Army, nor the rest of the Order, who were supposed to be the older and thus, more mature of them all. They had all finished their Christmas feast and opened their Christmas presents and then rushed out into the snow to have their traditional Christmas snowball fight. There were neither teams, nor safety points, nor time-outs. Saying that you were going inside to warm up didn't save you either. Not even Mad Eye Moody, who had gone in to melt the ice that had begun to make his magical eye stick, had been spared from the snowball that Fred had enchanted to land on him once he'd gotten safely inside.
George bit his tongue to keep from laughing when he saw his twin huff and puff as he stumbled deeper into the light scattering of trees. Fred skidded to the ground and quickly made work of the snow around him. Soon, a neat pile of snowballs sat in front of him and he pulled out his wand. With a deft swish and flick they rose into the air and with a quick, careful prod, Fred sent them toward their victims. Wand already out, George waved it on the snow before him, creating three snowballs. Melting a path toward his twin to keep from making a sound, George guided the snowballs in front of him. Then, suddenly, he sent them flying. Each of them found the back of Fred's head in rapid succession.
"Ah!" Fred cried in alarm as the snow wriggled down the back of his shirt. "George, I am so going to kill you!" Laughing, George sprinted away, his twin soon after him. Fred leapt forward and caught his brother by the knees. After much wrestling and fighting, Fred finally had George in a head lock with one arm and was stuffing snow down his brother's shirt with the other. "How do you like that?" he cried in triumph.
"Oh, oy," George said, still holding on to the arm around his neck. He squirmed in discomfort in an effort to get the snow out of his shirt. "Would you look at that."
"What?"
"Over there. By the fountain, check it out." George let out a slow whistle and barely registered the snowball that had hit his torso courtesy of Tonks, who was sporting long white hair. "Blimey. You owe me some galleons, my brother."
"Don't be thick!" Fred gaped. "There is no way that you're going to take that as proof that they're together."
"Well, why not?" George demanded, though it came out slightly strangled as he was still in a choke hold. "Look at them. They're only throwing every other snowball at each other. If that isn't flirting, then I don't know what is."
"Then, you're clueless." Fred released his brother and plopped into the snow beside him. "I mean, come on. They're friends. Purposefully aiming snowballs at friends that don't want to be hit with them in the first place is what friends do."
"That's what normal friends do, yeah," George said, looking smug. "But you know that all guys tease and pester the girls they like. Remember that time that Ron fancied Hermione and didn't know how to handle it? A real prat, he was. He was always fighting with her, the poor git. He made all the wrong moves." George shook his head sadly.
Fred nudged his brother, but kept his eyes on the two by the fountain. "Not exactly proving your point here," he said wearily.
"Don't go spare," George said. "I'm getting there. Anyway, Ron... well, he's a bit of an extreme case, isn't he? Now, Harry, on the other hand, he knows how to handle a girl."
"Yeah, sure he does," Fred drawled sarcastically. "Are you talking about Cho Chang, then? Because you know he handled that girl really well."
"A girl like Hermione, I meant," George said fiercely, giving his brother a look. "If you like them, you don't argue with them or ignore them." Here, George grinned. "You throw snowballs at them. Note how he's throwing only one snowball for every two of hers. That's how he sees if she's interested in him. In a bit, he's going to up the ante. She'll resort to scooping snowflakes in his face and he'll do the same right back. Ah, there you go."
Sure enough, Harry had thrown two snowballs at Hermione's shoulder. She shrieked with laughter, shielding her face before she dived at the snow. She scooped a large handful and without bothering to pat it into a ball, threw the fluffy snow in Harry's face. She did this twice and Harry made a show of throwing more snow into the air between them. Their laughter rang out even across the field to Fred and George.
Ginny sank to the ground beside the twins, watching Harry and Hermione from a slightly lower vantage point. "You know what's amazing?" Ginny asked the air, though her question was directed at the twins. "The only person here that doesn't realize that they're flirting like mad is you, Fred."
Fred sighed stubbornly. "Honestly? You know the reason I don't see them together is because it's almost too perfect for them to be together."
"Perfect?" Ginny shrieked. "Ha! Shows what you know." Frowning, she dramatically rearranged her hair in her hat and gestured at George. "Tell him how wrong he is." When George opened his mouth to explain, she cut him off. "Do you know how often they've fought? You thought their fifth year was bad..." She shook her head, whistling.
"What happened?" Fred asked, intrigued. A fight wasn't unusual, but if it was worse than their fifth year...
Ginny grinned. She knew when she had a proper audience. She crossed her legs and got settled, leaning forward as if telling a secret or some great piece of gossip. "There was this one time that Harry was getting into one of his moods. You know the ones. Where he's very into the solitary hero image and thinks that if he stays away from the ones he cares about, he can protect them? Well, Hermione had already tried a billion times to get Harry to stop moping about in the dormitories, so one night, she stomps all the way up to his dorm and pounds on the door. Bam, bam, bam!" Ginny struck the ground three times. Fred jumped. "He doesn't say a word, thinking she'll go away. She isn't fooled, of course, and she just opens the door. Waltzes right in, she does, and next thing I know, Ron, Neville, Seamus, and Dean have been kicked out of the room!"
"No," Fred breathed. "She did that?"
She shushed him and went on: "For the first ten minutes, all we heard was Hermione's voice. It must have carried clear to Dumbledore's office, I tell you. You could tell she was angry with him because she was just screeching at him and then Harry was yelling right back at her. Couldn't even make out the words because they kept overlapping and getting mixed up, but then... we heard crying... and then, it got quiet. For another hour, we didn't hear anything from that room except whispers."
Fred's brows bunched together. "What were they saying then?"
Ginny shrugged. "We never found out. The next day, Harry came down from the dormitories like he used to and talked and asked about what had happened while he'd been gone. Ron tried to ask them what had happened that night, but neither of them said anything. Next thing we know, Harry's defeated Voldemort and he and Hermione are competing for the World's Biggest Saps."
George glanced at Harry and Hermione and saw them sitting together on the edge of the fountain. By the looks of it, they were having an intense conversation, involving shy smiles, lecherous glances, and shoulder nudges that eventually included the entire side of one's body. Blushing a bit and laughing quietly to themselves, Harry and Hermione slid their hands together. George pointed it out to Fred, who rolled his eyes and sent him a look that clearly asked him: "When are you going to get over it?" Crossing her arms, Ginny huffed a bit, miffed at their silent communication.
The snowball fight seemed to have died out. Here and there, groups of old Hogwarts students talked and laughed and enjoyed themselves in the snow. A few sought refuge inside the warmth of the home, shaking themselves to get out all the snow that had climbed up their jeans during their running. Moody and Remus were sharing a match for their cigars near the kitchen window. He could see his parents washing dishes together just past them. Tonks tripped over the step as she entered the house. Mundungus Fletcher talked rapidly with Dedalus Diggle while Mrs. Figg looked on disapprovingly from the living room window. Looking worn out and still sporting a glittering collection of snowflakes in his hair, Ron made his way toward them with a cup of hot cocoa.
"Something must have been said," George mused, "to have made Harry change his mind in one night."
"Of course," Ginny snapped quickly. "That much is obvious. The only question is what."
Ron's shoes crunched through the snow as he got close and he sipped at his cocoa. "What are we talking about?"
"The fight," Fred supplied and Ron nodded sagely. "Am I the only one who didn't know about this fight?"
George smiled apologetically. "Tonks doesn't know. Neither do Mum and Dad. The only reason I know is because Ginny doesn't have any one else to rant to during the summer. I know her acquaintances favorite color. Feel grateful."
"Hey!"
"Our point was," George said to his twin, "that Harry and Hermione are not perfect. They're highly compatible, of course, but not perfect. But that's the beauty of it. They're the best of friends and they've known each other forever. They've dating other people and apparently found them sorely lacking."
"They have this strange sort of telepathy," Ron added and perched himself on the edge of a bench. "I swear, sometimes, they'd leave me in the dust because they'd be going so fast on a trail that I didn't see." Ginny patted his knee sympathetically.
"They touched each other a lot, even before the final battle," said another boy, who was leaning against the tree and joining the conversation anyway. Fred bit back a sound of surprise when he recognized him as Justin Finch-Fletchley. "She was always grabbing his arm during Quidditch matches that he wasn't playing in and I saw Harry dragging Hermione to Hagrid's hut by the hand one afternoon."
Others started to gather around them, chiming in once they knew who the topic was. Fred recognized most, having practiced with them during the meetings for Dumbledore's Army. A lot were fellow Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs and alongside a group of Ravenclaws, there was a light scattering of Slytherins Fred knew: Blaise Zabini and a few of his close buddies. They knew some of the most excellent charms and Blaise had been the one to extend the invisibility charm for the Headless Hats.
"They finish each other's sentences," said Blaise.
"They trust each other," came from a sweet-looking Hufflepuff with pouting lips. Fred put name to face: Hannah Abbott.
"He can get her out of the library." Ron, of course.
"She doesn't like him just because he's the Boy Who Lived or because he defeated Voldemort for good." A cluster of women and girls cooed sweetly at this one and giggled afterward. Despite their age, they reminded Fred of first years and he searched for a glimpse of Harry and Hermione through the gathering. He couldn't spot them.
"He knows what kind of gifts to get her." From Ginny, who still thought it was hilarious that Ron had bought Hermione perfume.
"She's the only one who can get him to eat breakfast before a Quidditch match." At this, many of the men made sounds that told Fred that they had all noticed this particular trait. The women made another sound, a single note that kept rising in pitch and eventually dissolved into another mass of giggles.
"Remember them at the dinner table earlier?" This met another round of acknowledgment from the group.
George leaned over. "Convinced yet?" he asked, sounding slightly impatient. "Harry and Hermione are looking curious." He pointed them out past the heads of two Ravenclaws. "Is it too late to abandon the crowd?" Fred waved down his brother and silently begged for patience.
As more and more little moments were added to the ever growing list, Fred wondered at them. There were so many people that he doubted even knew either Harry or Hermione very well. Only two had ever been out with them on a nightly excursion. Only one had kept going with them and he was getting increasingly quiet, though Fred was sure that Ron had noticed plenty more than just what these acquaintances were dishing out. Fred wondered. Were Harry and Hermione that obvious? But then he wondered more.
"Oy, Ron," Fred said, voice rising above the voices of the group. "What happened between you and Hermione? I know you guys fought and all, but why didn't you ever try again?"
Ron flushed with embarrassment when all eyes turned on him. "Well, um... it's rather simple in a very complicated way," he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees as he gestured. "We clash at even the most basic of levels. She likes cats. I like rats. I love flying. She's terrified of it. I hate it when she makes Harry and me study for tests, but she did it anyway." ("Harry's in the library with her all the time," whispered a Gryffindor.) "I think she's bossy and a know-it-all. She thinks she's confident and intelligent." ("Things anyone should want in a woman," murmured Blaise's best friend, who looked as if she was vying for some of Blaise's affection if Fred had anything to say about it.) "I think I'm a generally funny guy. She thinks I'm a prat most of the time." He shrugged. "We're just way too different to ever really be together."
"Some people think that opposites attract when it comes to love," commented a lanky, doe-eyed girl named Luna. She shoved a pair of glasses, which were minus the usual lenses, up the bridge of her nose and stared, starry-eyed, at Ron, who let out a short bark of laughter.
"Opposites attract in magnets and planets and all that, sure. But love," Ron paused and shook his head, "that's not something that you can plan. You can't chart out what makes you, you, decide what the exact opposite of that is, and marry him because opposites attract. Besides, loving Hermione requires something that I lack." Everyone looked on with interest and Ron grinned. "Insanity."
"Is that so?"
Ron instantly hunched guiltily and twisted to look up at Hermione, who stood behind him with her arms crossed, but an amused smile on her face. The group laughed together when Ron grinned cheekily. Fred noted that Harry was standing closer to Hermione than he ever had before. Harry had his arm around her and his hand rested gently on her waist as if he was still a little uncertain as to where he should put it. Fred smiled at them and when everyone begun making their way into the house, he lingered back with his twin. George dusted the snow off of him and looked expectantly at him.
"Well?" George asked and held out a hand.
Sighing, Fred dug his hand into his pocket and slapped a stack of five galleons into the outstretched hand. "So," he started as George happily jingled the coins in his pocket, "how long before they get married, you bet?"
Title: Making a Believer
Rating: PG
Genre: General, Romance
Summary: It's post-Hogwarts, Christmas time. Voldemort has been defeated and love is beginning to blossom between Harry and Hermione, but Fred refuses to see it. George and many others help him to see the truth.
Dedicated to Felinephoenix and everyone else on the HMS Pumpkin Pie, who helped me to believe this couple was possible.
It was a beautiful Christmas morning. Waves of snow had piled across the ground, but that hadn't hindered the Weasley family, nor Hermione, nor Harry, nor other members of Dumbledore's Army, nor the rest of the Order, who were supposed to be the older and thus, more mature of them all. They had all finished their Christmas feast and opened their Christmas presents and then rushed out into the snow to have their traditional Christmas snowball fight. There were neither teams, nor safety points, nor time-outs. Saying that you were going inside to warm up didn't save you either. Not even Mad Eye Moody, who had gone in to melt the ice that had begun to make his magical eye stick, had been spared from the snowball that Fred had enchanted to land on him once he'd gotten safely inside.
George bit his tongue to keep from laughing when he saw his twin huff and puff as he stumbled deeper into the light scattering of trees. Fred skidded to the ground and quickly made work of the snow around him. Soon, a neat pile of snowballs sat in front of him and he pulled out his wand. With a deft swish and flick they rose into the air and with a quick, careful prod, Fred sent them toward their victims. Wand already out, George waved it on the snow before him, creating three snowballs. Melting a path toward his twin to keep from making a sound, George guided the snowballs in front of him. Then, suddenly, he sent them flying. Each of them found the back of Fred's head in rapid succession.
"Ah!" Fred cried in alarm as the snow wriggled down the back of his shirt. "George, I am so going to kill you!" Laughing, George sprinted away, his twin soon after him. Fred leapt forward and caught his brother by the knees. After much wrestling and fighting, Fred finally had George in a head lock with one arm and was stuffing snow down his brother's shirt with the other. "How do you like that?" he cried in triumph.
"Oh, oy," George said, still holding on to the arm around his neck. He squirmed in discomfort in an effort to get the snow out of his shirt. "Would you look at that."
"What?"
"Over there. By the fountain, check it out." George let out a slow whistle and barely registered the snowball that had hit his torso courtesy of Tonks, who was sporting long white hair. "Blimey. You owe me some galleons, my brother."
"Don't be thick!" Fred gaped. "There is no way that you're going to take that as proof that they're together."
"Well, why not?" George demanded, though it came out slightly strangled as he was still in a choke hold. "Look at them. They're only throwing every other snowball at each other. If that isn't flirting, then I don't know what is."
"Then, you're clueless." Fred released his brother and plopped into the snow beside him. "I mean, come on. They're friends. Purposefully aiming snowballs at friends that don't want to be hit with them in the first place is what friends do."
"That's what normal friends do, yeah," George said, looking smug. "But you know that all guys tease and pester the girls they like. Remember that time that Ron fancied Hermione and didn't know how to handle it? A real prat, he was. He was always fighting with her, the poor git. He made all the wrong moves." George shook his head sadly.
Fred nudged his brother, but kept his eyes on the two by the fountain. "Not exactly proving your point here," he said wearily.
"Don't go spare," George said. "I'm getting there. Anyway, Ron... well, he's a bit of an extreme case, isn't he? Now, Harry, on the other hand, he knows how to handle a girl."
"Yeah, sure he does," Fred drawled sarcastically. "Are you talking about Cho Chang, then? Because you know he handled that girl really well."
"A girl like Hermione, I meant," George said fiercely, giving his brother a look. "If you like them, you don't argue with them or ignore them." Here, George grinned. "You throw snowballs at them. Note how he's throwing only one snowball for every two of hers. That's how he sees if she's interested in him. In a bit, he's going to up the ante. She'll resort to scooping snowflakes in his face and he'll do the same right back. Ah, there you go."
Sure enough, Harry had thrown two snowballs at Hermione's shoulder. She shrieked with laughter, shielding her face before she dived at the snow. She scooped a large handful and without bothering to pat it into a ball, threw the fluffy snow in Harry's face. She did this twice and Harry made a show of throwing more snow into the air between them. Their laughter rang out even across the field to Fred and George.
Ginny sank to the ground beside the twins, watching Harry and Hermione from a slightly lower vantage point. "You know what's amazing?" Ginny asked the air, though her question was directed at the twins. "The only person here that doesn't realize that they're flirting like mad is you, Fred."
Fred sighed stubbornly. "Honestly? You know the reason I don't see them together is because it's almost too perfect for them to be together."
"Perfect?" Ginny shrieked. "Ha! Shows what you know." Frowning, she dramatically rearranged her hair in her hat and gestured at George. "Tell him how wrong he is." When George opened his mouth to explain, she cut him off. "Do you know how often they've fought? You thought their fifth year was bad..." She shook her head, whistling.
"What happened?" Fred asked, intrigued. A fight wasn't unusual, but if it was worse than their fifth year...
Ginny grinned. She knew when she had a proper audience. She crossed her legs and got settled, leaning forward as if telling a secret or some great piece of gossip. "There was this one time that Harry was getting into one of his moods. You know the ones. Where he's very into the solitary hero image and thinks that if he stays away from the ones he cares about, he can protect them? Well, Hermione had already tried a billion times to get Harry to stop moping about in the dormitories, so one night, she stomps all the way up to his dorm and pounds on the door. Bam, bam, bam!" Ginny struck the ground three times. Fred jumped. "He doesn't say a word, thinking she'll go away. She isn't fooled, of course, and she just opens the door. Waltzes right in, she does, and next thing I know, Ron, Neville, Seamus, and Dean have been kicked out of the room!"
"No," Fred breathed. "She did that?"
She shushed him and went on: "For the first ten minutes, all we heard was Hermione's voice. It must have carried clear to Dumbledore's office, I tell you. You could tell she was angry with him because she was just screeching at him and then Harry was yelling right back at her. Couldn't even make out the words because they kept overlapping and getting mixed up, but then... we heard crying... and then, it got quiet. For another hour, we didn't hear anything from that room except whispers."
Fred's brows bunched together. "What were they saying then?"
Ginny shrugged. "We never found out. The next day, Harry came down from the dormitories like he used to and talked and asked about what had happened while he'd been gone. Ron tried to ask them what had happened that night, but neither of them said anything. Next thing we know, Harry's defeated Voldemort and he and Hermione are competing for the World's Biggest Saps."
George glanced at Harry and Hermione and saw them sitting together on the edge of the fountain. By the looks of it, they were having an intense conversation, involving shy smiles, lecherous glances, and shoulder nudges that eventually included the entire side of one's body. Blushing a bit and laughing quietly to themselves, Harry and Hermione slid their hands together. George pointed it out to Fred, who rolled his eyes and sent him a look that clearly asked him: "When are you going to get over it?" Crossing her arms, Ginny huffed a bit, miffed at their silent communication.
The snowball fight seemed to have died out. Here and there, groups of old Hogwarts students talked and laughed and enjoyed themselves in the snow. A few sought refuge inside the warmth of the home, shaking themselves to get out all the snow that had climbed up their jeans during their running. Moody and Remus were sharing a match for their cigars near the kitchen window. He could see his parents washing dishes together just past them. Tonks tripped over the step as she entered the house. Mundungus Fletcher talked rapidly with Dedalus Diggle while Mrs. Figg looked on disapprovingly from the living room window. Looking worn out and still sporting a glittering collection of snowflakes in his hair, Ron made his way toward them with a cup of hot cocoa.
"Something must have been said," George mused, "to have made Harry change his mind in one night."
"Of course," Ginny snapped quickly. "That much is obvious. The only question is what."
Ron's shoes crunched through the snow as he got close and he sipped at his cocoa. "What are we talking about?"
"The fight," Fred supplied and Ron nodded sagely. "Am I the only one who didn't know about this fight?"
George smiled apologetically. "Tonks doesn't know. Neither do Mum and Dad. The only reason I know is because Ginny doesn't have any one else to rant to during the summer. I know her acquaintances favorite color. Feel grateful."
"Hey!"
"Our point was," George said to his twin, "that Harry and Hermione are not perfect. They're highly compatible, of course, but not perfect. But that's the beauty of it. They're the best of friends and they've known each other forever. They've dating other people and apparently found them sorely lacking."
"They have this strange sort of telepathy," Ron added and perched himself on the edge of a bench. "I swear, sometimes, they'd leave me in the dust because they'd be going so fast on a trail that I didn't see." Ginny patted his knee sympathetically.
"They touched each other a lot, even before the final battle," said another boy, who was leaning against the tree and joining the conversation anyway. Fred bit back a sound of surprise when he recognized him as Justin Finch-Fletchley. "She was always grabbing his arm during Quidditch matches that he wasn't playing in and I saw Harry dragging Hermione to Hagrid's hut by the hand one afternoon."
Others started to gather around them, chiming in once they knew who the topic was. Fred recognized most, having practiced with them during the meetings for Dumbledore's Army. A lot were fellow Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs and alongside a group of Ravenclaws, there was a light scattering of Slytherins Fred knew: Blaise Zabini and a few of his close buddies. They knew some of the most excellent charms and Blaise had been the one to extend the invisibility charm for the Headless Hats.
"They finish each other's sentences," said Blaise.
"They trust each other," came from a sweet-looking Hufflepuff with pouting lips. Fred put name to face: Hannah Abbott.
"He can get her out of the library." Ron, of course.
"She doesn't like him just because he's the Boy Who Lived or because he defeated Voldemort for good." A cluster of women and girls cooed sweetly at this one and giggled afterward. Despite their age, they reminded Fred of first years and he searched for a glimpse of Harry and Hermione through the gathering. He couldn't spot them.
"He knows what kind of gifts to get her." From Ginny, who still thought it was hilarious that Ron had bought Hermione perfume.
"She's the only one who can get him to eat breakfast before a Quidditch match." At this, many of the men made sounds that told Fred that they had all noticed this particular trait. The women made another sound, a single note that kept rising in pitch and eventually dissolved into another mass of giggles.
"Remember them at the dinner table earlier?" This met another round of acknowledgment from the group.
George leaned over. "Convinced yet?" he asked, sounding slightly impatient. "Harry and Hermione are looking curious." He pointed them out past the heads of two Ravenclaws. "Is it too late to abandon the crowd?" Fred waved down his brother and silently begged for patience.
As more and more little moments were added to the ever growing list, Fred wondered at them. There were so many people that he doubted even knew either Harry or Hermione very well. Only two had ever been out with them on a nightly excursion. Only one had kept going with them and he was getting increasingly quiet, though Fred was sure that Ron had noticed plenty more than just what these acquaintances were dishing out. Fred wondered. Were Harry and Hermione that obvious? But then he wondered more.
"Oy, Ron," Fred said, voice rising above the voices of the group. "What happened between you and Hermione? I know you guys fought and all, but why didn't you ever try again?"
Ron flushed with embarrassment when all eyes turned on him. "Well, um... it's rather simple in a very complicated way," he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees as he gestured. "We clash at even the most basic of levels. She likes cats. I like rats. I love flying. She's terrified of it. I hate it when she makes Harry and me study for tests, but she did it anyway." ("Harry's in the library with her all the time," whispered a Gryffindor.) "I think she's bossy and a know-it-all. She thinks she's confident and intelligent." ("Things anyone should want in a woman," murmured Blaise's best friend, who looked as if she was vying for some of Blaise's affection if Fred had anything to say about it.) "I think I'm a generally funny guy. She thinks I'm a prat most of the time." He shrugged. "We're just way too different to ever really be together."
"Some people think that opposites attract when it comes to love," commented a lanky, doe-eyed girl named Luna. She shoved a pair of glasses, which were minus the usual lenses, up the bridge of her nose and stared, starry-eyed, at Ron, who let out a short bark of laughter.
"Opposites attract in magnets and planets and all that, sure. But love," Ron paused and shook his head, "that's not something that you can plan. You can't chart out what makes you, you, decide what the exact opposite of that is, and marry him because opposites attract. Besides, loving Hermione requires something that I lack." Everyone looked on with interest and Ron grinned. "Insanity."
"Is that so?"
Ron instantly hunched guiltily and twisted to look up at Hermione, who stood behind him with her arms crossed, but an amused smile on her face. The group laughed together when Ron grinned cheekily. Fred noted that Harry was standing closer to Hermione than he ever had before. Harry had his arm around her and his hand rested gently on her waist as if he was still a little uncertain as to where he should put it. Fred smiled at them and when everyone begun making their way into the house, he lingered back with his twin. George dusted the snow off of him and looked expectantly at him.
"Well?" George asked and held out a hand.
Sighing, Fred dug his hand into his pocket and slapped a stack of five galleons into the outstretched hand. "So," he started as George happily jingled the coins in his pocket, "how long before they get married, you bet?"
