Plainly Nothing of the Sort (Fred/Hermione)
Title: Plainly Nothing of the Sort
Author: herminia
Ships: Fred/Hermione
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None / NO SPOILERS
Word Count: 762
Summary: Hermione Granger has spent the last seven years NOT falling for Fred Weasley. And NO near-death incidents are going to disrupt the status quo. D’you hear me?
X-posted to blueflame_hhr, bit_of_mayhem, books_freckles, minor_pairings and my personal journal.
* * * * *
Hermione Granger frowns down at her wristwatch with a twinge of annoyance. He’s late - late again, she should say. Not that she’s gotten used to their nightly talks, not that she relies on them to brighten her day or keeps time by them. Not that these talks set apart one dull day from the next. Nothing of the sort. It’s not that he’s anything but an older brother to her, someone to watch her back and dispense unwanted advice and shoo away prospective suitors. She tells herself she only wants him here so he can revel in the victory too-however small a victory it may be. That he should be here because-and only because-there hasn’t been enough laughter in his life-in anyone’s-lately. That’s all.
An hour later, however, the vague sense of annoyance has morphed into something verging on panic. Her palms are sweating slightly and her mouth is bone-dry. What’s keeping him? He should be back by now, back from guard duty, filling the room with his laughter.
Her eyes dart from the clock on the mantle to portraithole and back, catching glimpses of Fred Weasley every which way she looks. Fred Weasley passing out Canary Creams, the floor littered with scruffy yellow feathers. Fred Weasley vomiting theatrically into a hat. He’s smart, Fred is, she reminds herself. But it’s occasions like this that make her wish they weren’t employing the Gryffindor common room as their base camp-something about too many memories crammed into too small a space.
She shakes her head. The room is too loud - much too loud - for her to concentrate on the things that bear thinking about: the whos and wheres, and whats and whys. Hermione Granger has spent the last seven years NOT falling for Fred Weasley and the occasion of his disappearance is no time to wax sentimental.
She chances a glance at his twin, hunkered down with Bill and Charlie in the corner, heads down, talking strategy in the midst of celebratory mayhem, and her heart clenches painfully around the feeling that something’s gone horribly, horribly wrong.
But before she can decide on a course of action-preferably one that doesn’t involve sitting and fretting and waiting, waiting, always waiting-the portrait swings back to admit him.
“Not a good night for a butterbeer run, I’d wager,” Fred says, with a brave smile. His arm hangs at an odd angle and there’s a nasty cut scrawled across his cheek but here he is: whole and living and breathing, every bit the wizard she’s not been falling for, not until the moment she was threatened with his loss.
In a heartbeat, she’s standing before him, fussing over the blood trickling down his chin and pooling in the dip of his collarbone, babbling incoherently about what Gunhilda of Gorsemoor recommended for cuts and breaks and bruises on page 986 of Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions and how yes, someone had to patrol the perimeter of Hogsmeade but it shouldn’t have been him - not when he was already tired from guard duty the night before and definitely not when she hadn’t had a chance to tell him that she might love him (against her better judgment, of course), and how he’d given them all quite a scare-
-he silences her with a kiss she hadn’t seen coming. “Gotcha,” he whispers, the sound muffled against the crook of her neck.
* * * * *
“Did I really say I love you, just like that?” she will ask later, once the party has died down and the stragglers have trudged up to bed.
“You blurted it out somewhere in there. In front of everyone,” he adds with a self-satisfied smirk. “Not like you at all.”
“Ginny said it’s been painfully obvious for months,” Hermione rejoins, fingertips daintily walking the bruise on his jaw. Part of her wants to keep Fred - keep all of this - her own little secret. She doesn’t want anyone else to snatch him away; she doesn’t want it to fade in the full-on light of day; she doesn’t want it up for public consumption, this new thing that’s just hers and just his.
“Well, since we’re in the mood for confessions,” he begins, but his voice trails off and he kisses her again, letting a breath of air tickle the whorl of her ear, sending shivers of delight down her spine. Fair enough. Confession enough.
“That was rather obvious too-” she rejoins, laughing and not quite wanting to admit she’s been had, that for months and years he’d nearly tricked her into thinking this thing between them was maybe all just in her imagination. “-Painfully so.”
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The ending doesn’t quite have the oompah-pah I hoped for, but I clearly have no idea what else to do with it, as it’s been sitting on my computer for a year, untouched and unposted.
RECENT FIC: "Plenty That He Doesn't Know At All."
Author: herminia
Ships: Fred/Hermione
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None / NO SPOILERS
Word Count: 762
Summary: Hermione Granger has spent the last seven years NOT falling for Fred Weasley. And NO near-death incidents are going to disrupt the status quo. D’you hear me?
X-posted to blueflame_hhr, bit_of_mayhem, books_freckles, minor_pairings and my personal journal.
* * * * *
Hermione Granger frowns down at her wristwatch with a twinge of annoyance. He’s late - late again, she should say. Not that she’s gotten used to their nightly talks, not that she relies on them to brighten her day or keeps time by them. Not that these talks set apart one dull day from the next. Nothing of the sort. It’s not that he’s anything but an older brother to her, someone to watch her back and dispense unwanted advice and shoo away prospective suitors. She tells herself she only wants him here so he can revel in the victory too-however small a victory it may be. That he should be here because-and only because-there hasn’t been enough laughter in his life-in anyone’s-lately. That’s all.
An hour later, however, the vague sense of annoyance has morphed into something verging on panic. Her palms are sweating slightly and her mouth is bone-dry. What’s keeping him? He should be back by now, back from guard duty, filling the room with his laughter.
Her eyes dart from the clock on the mantle to portraithole and back, catching glimpses of Fred Weasley every which way she looks. Fred Weasley passing out Canary Creams, the floor littered with scruffy yellow feathers. Fred Weasley vomiting theatrically into a hat. He’s smart, Fred is, she reminds herself. But it’s occasions like this that make her wish they weren’t employing the Gryffindor common room as their base camp-something about too many memories crammed into too small a space.
She shakes her head. The room is too loud - much too loud - for her to concentrate on the things that bear thinking about: the whos and wheres, and whats and whys. Hermione Granger has spent the last seven years NOT falling for Fred Weasley and the occasion of his disappearance is no time to wax sentimental.
She chances a glance at his twin, hunkered down with Bill and Charlie in the corner, heads down, talking strategy in the midst of celebratory mayhem, and her heart clenches painfully around the feeling that something’s gone horribly, horribly wrong.
But before she can decide on a course of action-preferably one that doesn’t involve sitting and fretting and waiting, waiting, always waiting-the portrait swings back to admit him.
“Not a good night for a butterbeer run, I’d wager,” Fred says, with a brave smile. His arm hangs at an odd angle and there’s a nasty cut scrawled across his cheek but here he is: whole and living and breathing, every bit the wizard she’s not been falling for, not until the moment she was threatened with his loss.
In a heartbeat, she’s standing before him, fussing over the blood trickling down his chin and pooling in the dip of his collarbone, babbling incoherently about what Gunhilda of Gorsemoor recommended for cuts and breaks and bruises on page 986 of Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions and how yes, someone had to patrol the perimeter of Hogsmeade but it shouldn’t have been him - not when he was already tired from guard duty the night before and definitely not when she hadn’t had a chance to tell him that she might love him (against her better judgment, of course), and how he’d given them all quite a scare-
-he silences her with a kiss she hadn’t seen coming. “Gotcha,” he whispers, the sound muffled against the crook of her neck.
* * * * *
“Did I really say I love you, just like that?” she will ask later, once the party has died down and the stragglers have trudged up to bed.
“You blurted it out somewhere in there. In front of everyone,” he adds with a self-satisfied smirk. “Not like you at all.”
“Ginny said it’s been painfully obvious for months,” Hermione rejoins, fingertips daintily walking the bruise on his jaw. Part of her wants to keep Fred - keep all of this - her own little secret. She doesn’t want anyone else to snatch him away; she doesn’t want it to fade in the full-on light of day; she doesn’t want it up for public consumption, this new thing that’s just hers and just his.
“Well, since we’re in the mood for confessions,” he begins, but his voice trails off and he kisses her again, letting a breath of air tickle the whorl of her ear, sending shivers of delight down her spine. Fair enough. Confession enough.
“That was rather obvious too-” she rejoins, laughing and not quite wanting to admit she’s been had, that for months and years he’d nearly tricked her into thinking this thing between them was maybe all just in her imagination. “-Painfully so.”
[ Read? ]
[ Review! ]
[ Friend us? ]
[ Thank you! ]
The ending doesn’t quite have the oompah-pah I hoped for, but I clearly have no idea what else to do with it, as it’s been sitting on my computer for a year, untouched and unposted.
RECENT FIC: "Plenty That He Doesn't Know At All."