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Hermione’s had a tough week at work and just wants to find someone to unwind with. It is finally the weekend, and she can’t wait to physically de-stress herself.
Normally, she would just head home, have a bath, watch a movie with a glass of wine, then read a bit before going to bed. But this week has been chaotic, and she needs to get out of her apartment and out of her head.
She meets this cute, tall, redhead at a pretty nice bar in Diagon Alley. He came up to her at the bar, politely introduced himself, and offered to buy her next drink. This guy Fred is obnoxiously handsome (and kind of adorable too), and he’s charming and funny. Actually, he’s really funny, like, super quick-witted. And he’s way too smooth to be inexperienced at this. She doesn’t know much more than that and doesn’t really want to. She figures he seems nice enough, and he offers to take her to his place. She tries not to agree too quickly.
They finally arrive at his apartment door. He unlocks it, and they take two steps in and notice the dust cloud by the fireplace. A coughing man is standing there as the dust clears. He’s obviously just flooed into the living room and looks absolutely disheveled. Fred quickly asks the man what’s wrong, and the man blurts out that Angelina is at the hospital and he’s trying to gather the family since George can’t leave. Almost everyone is there already. But this guy, Ron apparently, couldn’t find Fred sooner since, obviously, Fred was out all night.
And suddenly, without even thinking about it, both Hermione and Fred are through the fireplace and stepping foot in the hospital lobby. In the next instant, she’s surrounded by a swarm of redheads in a waiting room.
Apparently, no one knows about Fred’s habit of occasional one-nighters because when everyone sees Fred holding hands with an unknown girl…. Well, let’s just say they jump to varying conclusions.
Going off everyone’s facial expressions, Fred’s two oldest looking (and jaw-droppingly gorgeous) brothers appear to think he probably injured himself and it must be complete coincidence he’s there at the hospital at the same time as the rest of them. Whoever the girl is standing next to him was just helping him get there. His other brothers (she’s having trouble placing ages on them) and the sister (she can tell they’re related from the hair) seem a bit curious but mostly appear to not care much, probably assuming something close-ish to the truth. Maybe a short term girlfriend.
The rest… His parents and… A blond woman? Must be an in-law then. Actually a few female in-laws, she notices, are there, going by the hair color. All seeming to jump to wilder conclusions.
She guesses with a new baby coming, everyone has love, marriage, and babies in mind because the woman who must be Fred’s mother starts getting very excited and teary-eyed at the sight of them holding hands and runs up to Hermione and hugs her tighter than she has ever been held in her life. Then she starts blabbering something about why didn’t Fred tell her he found someone and “Oh I’m sure you’re just lovely, dear. I can’t wait to hear all about you and how you two met. What a way to introduce his girlfriend to his family. Oh well, can’t blame him, dear. It’s an exciting moment after all. Besides, when will we have the whole family all together again like this? No one would want to wait that long.” The mother chuckled at her own joke as she led Hermione over to a row of chairs.
Hermione very quickly gathered that the mother is one of those very kind-hearted, homey mother figures that everyone probably admires very much. She had a hard time believing this woman raised so many kids (mostly boys too) – that is, until two of the still unnamed brothers start getting a bit loud as they tease their sister and she doesn’t hesitate to snap at them from across the room.
Fortunately, Fred stays by her side as his mum continues to talk at her, which she is extremely grateful for. But neither can get out a word to correct the mother’s assumptions, but even if they could, neither would want to actually explain the truth of the situation. So Hermione and Fred silently agree to pretend to be a real couple, which is easy enough.
They hold hands and tell everyone they met at Fred’s shop and haven’t been dating very long, just a couple weeks. She wasn’t aware he owned a shop until then; she wonders what kind of shop a man like him would run.
Conversation steadily moves on after that. She is finally introduced to everyone; though they will see in an hour if any of those names actually stuck.
It turns out to be a very long night in the waiting room. Since it’s Fred’s twin who is the one having the baby, he couldn’t leave, and because of the situation she stumbled into, she didn’t quite feel like she could leave either. (She was a little slack-jawed to learn there were two of Fred running around in this world. She thinks she can imagine the chaos. (Little did she know though.))
So she found herself spending an exhausting night learning all about this man and his family that she most likely won’t ever meet again. But after a while, she realized she really did enjoy being around them. She almost wished she was dating Fred. His family was so endearing. And she thought her best friend Harry would probably really hit it off with… Ron. That’s his name. And potentially Ginny (the only female redhead, easy to remember), considering she was a pro quidditch player - definitely right up Harry’s alley. Plus, Hermione caught on quickly to the snark this girl had; Harry would be in love in a heartbeat. Their sass levels together would be amazing.
During the hours of waiting, she learned quite a bit about this family. They all were Hufflepuffs; whereas she and Harry were Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. That’s why she wasn’t familiar with them. But now she’s made the connection, she does remember hearing an awful lot about troublemaker twins back then. But she knows they’re really kind and loving too; she can tell by the way Fred treats his family, even if he is a bit rambunctious. The whole family fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, which she was in awe about. She thanked them profusely for their help, especially when she learned that Fred nearly lost his life then. She wanted to ask more about it, but Fred seemed uncomfortable talking about it. Well, no one likes talking about war, but she guessed he didn’t want to even more than most.
After that, she learned more about Fred and more about his siblings. Apparently, Fred and George weren’t just troublemakers, but they were “pranksters extraordinaire.” She rolled her eyes at that bit. And all of the siblings played quidditch at some point. She vaguely remembered Harry complaining about how good the Hufflepuff team was for a while there. She got to talk a bit about Harry at this point, which unfortunately led to the realization that she was talking about thee Harry Potter and that meant that she was thee Hermione Granger, the ultimate war hero duo. Now she was the uncomfortable one. Fred noticed though and changed topics. See? She knew he was really kind. He and his siblings started sharing all sorts of funny stories from their childhood and Hogwarts. Many of them were meant to be embarrassing for Fred but often somehow backfired on the sibling sharing the story either because of the prank they were talking about was actually more embarrassing for them or Fred took revenge by goin into a new story about them. Needless to say, Hermione spent many hours laughing.
It wasn’t until almost 7:30 am that a doctor walked into the sleepy waiting room and announced the birth of little Roxeanne Weasley at 7:23 am.
The family shuffled into the small room relatively soon after in order to greet the new parents and their new baby.
Fred was the first one to hold her, and she swears she saw him tear up. Then it was Fred’s parents and then the poor thing was passed around like a quaffle to everyone in the family. And somehow, she found herself in that lineup. She was one of the first (admittedly large) handful of people to hold this new, little, tiny, squishy human being. She was so precious; Hermione couldn’t believe it. She also started to tear up a bit, despite almost never crying usually. She really hoped no one noticed.
Fred gently took the newborn from her and passed her back to Angelina. Then everyone started to mumble about sleep and slowly shuffled out of the room after making sure to each congratulate the couple a hundred times.
Fred grabbed hold of her hand. “I’ll take you home, love.” Then he turned to his twin and his parents and told them he’d be back after taking her home and then going to his home for a shower and food and checking on the shop. He patted his dad on the back, got a hug and kiss from his mum, and they were finally set to go when his mother decided Hermione also needed to be crushed in another motherly bear hug.
Because of their exhaustion, they figured it would be safer to floo to her apartment. Normally, she wouldn’t let a strange man into her apartment, but she was exhausted and had a pretty strong inkling that this particular man would never do anything like what she might ordinarily fear.
He held her hand until they got into her apartment and then gently let go. “Sorry to pull you into that. I know that that was not what you were expecting when I offered to take you home with me. It’s not what I expected either.” They both tiredly laughed. “But I’m actually glad you were there. You seemed to… Ugh, I would not be saying this if I wasn’t so tired and honest right now.” He rubbed the inside corners of his eyes. “You seemed to fit there. Belong. I never take girls to meet my family because I’m always way too worried that whoever I take home won’t get along with them or will be overwhelmed or something. But you… I’m going to stop talking now.”
She laughed. And then decided something. She leaned forward, went on tiptoe, and kissed his cheek. “You’re right. That’s not how I expected last night to go. But you know what? I’m also really happy. Last night was fun. Exhausting. But fun. Thanks. And if you ever want a redo… Or a date… Let me know.” She smiled softly.
He picked up her hand again. “I’d like that.” He smiled too, then it vanished. “The date part I mean! I mean the, the o-other th-thing would be good too. But I mean.” He groaned. “Nevermind…” She just laughed at him.
Yeah, definitely not the way she was hoping to finish a hard week. But she’s definitely not disappointed either.
“Oh yeah, what kind of shop do you own?”