Chapter Text
The winter wind nipped and bit at Hermione’s bare legs as she stood on the steps that led to the exterior entrance of the Weasley twins’ flat above their shop.
She’d thought about wearing more – she’d thought about not doing this at all – but it seemed as though both making and being the victim of bad decisions was a recent trend in her life that wasn’t going away. At some point she’d decided to just give in and let the current drag her along. Wasn’t fighting it how people drowned, anyway?
She glanced down the side of the building at Diagon Alley, still alive with people enjoying food and merriment after a long day of holiday shopping. There was a massive Christmas tree in front of Gringotts in the distance and the lampposts were wrapped in garland, large red bows flapping along in the breeze.
Seasonal frivolity wasn’t something that she was liable to partake in that year, but it was still nice to see. Like watching through a television screen, she was simultaneously captivated and yet completely disconnected from all of it.
Gathering the last of her courage, she took the remaining few stairs up to the landing and the balcony, arriving in front of the door and taking care with her heels on the iron grate. Then she knocked, her extended hand shaking from more than just the cold.
It took a moment for someone to come to the door, long enough that she began to doubt if they were even home. It was just a few weeks before Christmas, after all, and holiday parties abounded. It wasn’t unreasonable to think that they might be out.
But as soon as the doubt manifested it disappeared again as the door swung inward, revealing none other than Fred Weasley. She knew it was Fred by both the intact ear on the left side of his head and the general demeanor with which he carried himself. He’d been different since… well, since nearly dying. Confident and cocky still, but in a way that didn’t feel entirely genuine. Like it was a mask, concealing an aloofness that both made perfect sense and yet seemed entirely out of place.
She thought that he might keep it up for the sake of those around him, but it didn’t bother her in those rare moments that it slipped. Sitting across from him at the dinner table when, for just a fraction of a moment, he’d stop smiling and just watch; a spectator.
If anything, it made her want for the real emotions that she knew were simmering below that flippant façade. Although wanting, she mused, was precisely what had gotten her into this.
“Hermione,” Fred started, surprise etched on his face, “What are you doing here?”
He glanced behind her, like she might not be alone, but she was.
“If you aren’t busy, I was hoping that I might be able to come in and talk.” She fought to keep her voice from shaking, but cold and nerves ultimately got the better of her. Surprise morphing to concern, Fred wordlessly opened the door wider and stepped aside, gesturing for her to enter.
Both of the boys wore their hair slightly shorter than they once had, and the lean musculature of youth had turned to broad shoulders and thick arms that she couldn’t help but drink in as she brushed past him, hugged as they were by his jumper.
“Can I get you a drink?” He asked as he helped her out of her coat and hung it on the rack beside the door, turning back to look at her. She watched his expression shift momentarily before being schooled away again. It was the dress – she knew it was the dress because it was leagues away from the sort of thing she normally wore. Crimson and tight, it dipped low between her breasts and cut off several inches above her knees, hugging her curves and leaving astoundingly little to the imagination.
“Please,” she nodded, placing her beaded bag on the dining table and wanting for something to do with her hands besides flutter them apprehensively at her sides.
Fred passed through the kitchen and into the living area where a small bar cart sat against the wall near the sofa. Without asking what she wanted, he went about opening a bottle of merlot, flicking a finger and skillfully summoning two glasses from the kitchen. When they were both full he extended one, which she gratefully accepted.
“Do you have… plans this evening?” He asked conversationally, though the look in his eyes as he once again examined her attire juxtaposed any casual tonality in his voice.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. He looked at her expectantly, waiting for more, but she took a long drink from her glass instead. Her stomach was in knots, and she was beginning to think that she might manage to ruin everything before it had even had the opportunity to begin.
But as she lowered her glass, Fred’s eyes fixed on her left hand, still hanging at her side. On her ring finger, to be precise. On her very naked, extremely unadorned, ring finger. His gaze snapped to hers.
“What happened?”
She wanted to look away, tried to look away, even, because the intensity behind his eyes was far too much. It saw too much, stripped her bare, but ultimately she couldn’t bring herself to break the connection.
“Ron and I are over,” she explained in a voice that hardly sounded like it belonged to her. Frankly she was glad of his surprise; it meant that Ron had honored her request that he not tell anybody.
But she couldn’t let herself think about them too much, those words, or she might get lost again in the emotions behind them. The shame and the embarrassment and everything she’d spent the past week trying to move past since confronting her former fiancé. He hadn’t even tried to deny it, and she didn’t know if that made it worse. He also hadn’t been able to give her a number when she asked exactly how many other women there had been, which definitely made it worse.
It didn’t matter, though. Emotions aside, it had all culminated in her ending up where she was standing just then. Hermione hadn’t gone to their flat to cry on the shoulder of a friend; Fred and George were hardly her friends, and she’d already finished crying.
No, Hermione was there for one reason and one reason alone: revenge.