Chapter Text
Oddly enough, the first coherent thought that ran through my head was that I was really too young to be having chest pains.
The second thought was that I should probably close my mouth. I daresay I looked a bit silly, with my jaw hanging loose and wide open. But no, I couldn't quite see my way clear to closing my mouth just yet. Mind-numbing shock tended to do that to me, don't you know.
"Oh Ron, for heaven's sake, stop overreacting!" Hermione's voice got through to me, as always, and the fog seemed to recede a bit, just enough for me to hear the next words out of her mouth. "You're behaving as if this is some kind of big deal!"
The familiarity of it might almost have made me smile, if my jaw hadn't been hanging about somewhere down around my knees. It was just so very Hermione to say it like that. Like I was making a fuss over nothing, because it's not as if this secret she'd just confessed, this revelation that had started shifting my world on its axis even as she admitted it . . . it's not as if that was 'some kind of big deal'. Yes. Right. Not a big deal at all. Just like nearly getting eaten by a giant, three-headed dog wasn't a big deal. Just like Quidditch wasn't a big deal. Just like defeating Voldemort wasn't a big deal. Hermione's always had an uncanny gift for understatement. Or maybe it's just that she's always had odd priorities. Harry and I have always thought she was a bit barmy like that. And speaking of Harry . . .
"You all right, there?" Gentle fingers carded through my hair and I regained enough motor control to turn and look into concerned green eyes. Finally managing to close my mouth, I tried to muster up a weak smile, for Harry's sake. He worries about me too much as it is. The smile must've been weaker than I thought, though; it left Harry looking even more worried.
"I'm fine," I assured him in the most convincing tone I could manage, leaning over to give him a quick kiss, knowing with the certainty of long-standing experience that he'd stop worrying about anything once I put my mouth on any part of him. Worked like a charm, as always; he started relaxing right away. Downright empowering, it is, knowing I have that kind of influence over him. The confidence booster bucked me up enough to finally meet Hermione's eye.
Or rather, try to meet Hermione's eye. She hadn't even noticed that I'd recovered from my blank-eyed-slack-jawed state, since she was too busy subjecting both the twins to her trademark glare promising Death and Destruction (and not necessarily in that order) to pay much attention to me. They just grinned at her widely, clearly enormously pleased with the success of their prank, utterly unconcerned that they'd awakened the ire of the most brilliant witch of our time, not to mention nearly giving their baby brother a stroke. I was tempted to give them a glare or two myself (most likely followed up with a nice, tidy right hook; baby brother I may be but I've still got half a foot of height on each of them, not to mention a stone or two of extra weight) but first things first. Hermione had some explaining to do.
"Hermione?"
"What?" she replied, without looking in my direction.
Thought she could get away with avoiding eye contact, did she? Well, she could think again. Clearly, she was embarrassed that the truth was out, but that was just too damn bad. She had to know me well enough to know I was not going to let that little bombshell she dropped just slide. After all, I'm one of her best friends. I didn't think we were capable of keeping secrets from each other.
And I felt sure that I was damn well entitled to an explanation of just how she managed to shag one of my brothers without me knowing.
Five Minutes Earlier
"Hermione," Fred purred. "Truth or dare?"
I saw the frown on Hermione's face as she watched Fred sift through the bowl of candies in front of him, and knew her answer will be 'truth' before she even opened her mouth. With Fred and George insisting that each of the 'dares' be a taste-test of one of their new prank-candies-in-development, I could hardly blame her for being wary. Oh, the twins were always fair about it, and were perfectly willing to test the candies themselves, but by the time Fred posed the question to her, she'd already watched Fred breathe fire, Harry shrink three feet, and me grow a foot of hair out of each of my ears, and that was just this year. Last year, Hermione got a candy that made her arse swell to three times its usual size. Bad luck that she was wearing Muggle clothes instead of robes; the . . . er . . . unexpected expansion split the seams of her trousers clean through. She fixed them once the spell wore off, of course, but I think she's been mildly teed off at the twins ever since. That girl can hold a grudge like nobody's business.
I couldn't blame her for going with the safer option of truth instead of dare. Truth could be embarrassing sometimes, (and why Fred and George felt the need to ask so many questions about mine and Harry's sex life I'll never know, unless they just like seeing the two of us blush,) but truth was still much less risky. After all, it was just the trio and the twins there, and what 'truth' could Hermione possibly have to hide from us?
"Truth," Hermione answered firmly, and I rolled my eyes a bit in her direction. I love the girl dearly but I freely admit that she can be a bit predictable.
"Excellent!" Fred's eyes lit up in smug satisfaction, and I got the first tingles of foreboding. I knew that look: it was Fred's 'you've just fallen into my trap' look. The last time he gave me that look, he'd slipped a potency potion in my drink. I was hard as a rock for a solid five hours, no matter how many times I slipped into the loo to give my wrist a work-out. Oh, did I mention he pulled that stunt at the reception after my cousin's christening? Nearly two hundred Weasleys were there and hugging all my elderly aunts and cousins while battling a hard-on I could've pounded nails with is an experience I never want to repeat. Whatever question Fred had in store for Hermione, it was sure to be something big. But what could it be? There was nothing big that had happened to her that she hadn't shared with us . . . was there?
"Tell us, Hermione," Fred asked, drawing the question out deliberately to build suspense, "what were . . . your sleeping arrangements . . . during your last week . . . at the dragon reservation?"
Her eyes narrowed. "How the hell did you hear about that?" she demanded. That tingle of foreboding I'd gotten earlier? Oh yeah, it chose that moment to get a hell of a lot worse.
"That doesn't answer the question," George piped in.
Hermione was blushing by then, even as she glared at both of the twins, and I was torn between my natural instinct to tell them off for picking on her . . . and my very real curiosity about the answer. She'd spent a month at Charlie's dragon reservation back in the spring, doing research for a paper on . . . something to do with dragon's blood. (She told me all about it, but it was complicated, and I couldn't be bothered to remember. The research paid off, and she got the paper published; that's what mattered.) Other than to say that the grounds of the reservation were lovely and that she learned a lot about dragons, what little she had said about the whole experience had sounded rather dull, to tell the truth. What could the sleeping arrangements have been to have gotten her so riled up? Did she sleep in the nude, or something?
"My last week at the dragon preserve," she stated crisply, anger evident behind every word, "I slept with Paul Hamington . . . and Charlie Weasley."
Silence fell over the room. Or maybe it didn't. I certainly couldn't hear anything, but that could be because of the dull roaring in my ears. My first coherent thought was that I was too young to be having chest pains. Then I thought that maybe I should close my mouth.
Hermione was still avoiding eye contact.
"Hermione," I pressed, determined to ask the question and make her answer it no matter how many leaping chocolate frogs have come to life in my stomach just at the thought of her in bed with Charlie and Paul, "what did you mean when you said that you sle . . . that you sle . . . . you . . ."
"Slept with Paul and Charlie?" Harry contributed.
"Yeah," I agreed. "That."
Hermione finally looked over at me for a moment or two before blushing and looking away.
"Look at that," Fred cooed. "She's shy!"
"Isn't that sweet," George added.
"Adorable."
"A moment worth remembering."
"A moment worth sharing."
"We should take pictures."
"Floo friends."
"Sell tickets."
"Get bent," Hermione hissed, regaining her confidence as she went back to glaring at the two of them.
"Look at that!" Harry commented loudly with incredibly forced cheerfulness. "We're out of butterbeer. Fred, George, don't you think you should go get some more? Right now?"
"George, I get the feeling Harry wants us to leave."
"No, no, Fred, you must have misunderstood."
"Hmm, maybe you're right."
"We should stay."
"Indeed we should."
"Watch Ron gape at Hermione."
"Watch Hermione explode at Ron."
"Watch me cast a warming spell that'll sunburn every inch of skin between your waist and your knees, front and back?" Hermione suggested in that sugar-coated tone of hers that I knew far too well. She doesn't like to cast when she's too angry to think straight—says it makes her magic go wonky—but when the anger's melted down to that ice cold, clenched-jaw, honey-sweetened tone, whatever threats she makes are about five seconds away from being realized. Fred and George knew this, too.
"On second thought, maybe we could use some more butterbeer," they said in unison, still grinning as they slid on shoes and headed for the door.
"And if we see Charlie or Paul, we'll just send them straight along then, shall we?" Fred tossed out right as he exited. To give credit where credit is due, his timing was perfect; whatever hex Hermione tried to throw at him hit the closing door, instead.
Hermione jumped to her feet straightaway, muttering under her breath while swishing her wand about in small, jerky motions.
"Erm, Hermione?" Harry's voice was very . . . careful. (It was always kind of funny, really—in times when I wasn't shockedstunnedappalled—to see still further proof that The Boy Who Lived to Beat the Bloody Tar Out of Old Whatsisface never lost his habit of being a little bit scared of his best friend.) "Are you," sparks flew directly over his head, and he ducked instinctively, "are you watching where you're pointing that thing?"
"Of course," Hermione answered, her voice sounding more than a bit distracted as she continued swishing and flicking and muttering a combination of spells I couldn't quite catch, interspersed with a running monologue on what she'd do to the twins the next time she got a chance.
". . . see how much gossip they manage when a Mutare Hex has their mouths coming out of their arses . . . hex their shop silver and green, appropriate for those damned cunning bastards . . . who's idea was this bloody stupid VVD tradition in the first place, I'd like to know . . ."
I opened my mouth to remind her that the VVD tradition was her idea, but Harry grabbed my arm and shook his head. I didn't understand—why would she ask if she didn't want an answer?—but as always, I deferred to Harry's greater judgment when it came to Nonsense Rules on How to Keep Hermione from Blowing Her Top. He'd always been better at that than me.
Besides, she knew perfectly well that this yearly tradition was her idea, all the way back to the very first time it happened, exactly three years before. The night we finally managed to defeat Voldemort, we stumbled back to Grimmauld Place and while Harry stared off blankly into space, and I just kept asking over and over again if we should notify the Ministry (mainly because I didn't know what else to say), Hermione tossed some Floo powder into the fireplace, grabbed our hands, pulled all three of us into the flames and yelled loudly and clearly, "Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, Diagon Alley!"
I thought she was mad at the time . . . but then, I usually think most of her ideas are mad, until she's proven right, yet again, as she very nearly always is. She was right on the money that night. We didn't need the Ministry breathing down our necks for details and press conferences, we didn't need Mum smothering us, or Saint Mungo's hovering over us, or the Order bombarding us with questions. After finally defeated the last slimy segment of the snake-faced bastard's soul, and his scaly body as well, what the three of us really needed was a warm, safe place with people we trusted; people who wouldn't fuss over us; people who understood us; and, most of all, people who could give us a good laugh. Fred and George fit the bill.
In the years that followed, it became something of a tradition. All the parties we're invited to, people always wanted us to talk about the final battle. Godric's balls, as if anyone would want to talk about fighting for your life, dodging curses right and left with your heart in your throat, praying to every god you've ever heard of that no one you love has been hit, and knowing, knowing, that it's just not possible that everyone will get out of there alive. It took two years for the nightmares to taper off to only once or twice a month. Call me crazy, but I don't really consider that proper cocktail party conversation, no matter how much free food and booze they give me. When the invitations arrive, as they do every year, Harry, Hermione, and I reply with vague statements about previous plans, and then sneak into the back entrance just off Diagon Alley to spend the evening with the twins. We bring food, they stock up on drinks, and we do nonsense things like play Truth or Dare for hours on end.
Merlin knows, if ever there's a time when Harry, Hermione, and I could use a laugh, it's on Victory over Voldemort Day, and Fred and George are long-standing experts at turning absolutely anything into a joke. (Every VVD, the two of them put up a massive display of 'treatments' for Victory over Veneral Disorders such as 'Imperi-oh-no-what's-that-rash' for sticky consequences from unprotected liaisons, 'Sectumsempr-ack!-what-was-I-thinking-to-have-brought-you-home-last-night' for those awkward mornings after, and, a perennial favorite, 'Erecta Kedavra,' for when your love life is dead in the water.) Even Hermione has been known to have a laugh at some of their gags, although she always warned them that one day, they'd go too far.
I think that day was today.
"Aha!" she crowed victoriously a moment later, walking over to a perfectly blank stretch of wall and . . . blowing it a kiss?
"Take this, you voyeuristic little turds," she hissed before slashing her wand in a sharp, decisive pattern over the stretch of bare brick. "There!" she announced, satisfaction clear in her voice. "I've disabled their monitoring spells.
"Monitoring spells?" Harry asked.
"Magical version of a security camera. I knew they'd never have left so easily if they hadn't thought they'd have some way of watching what happens, later." Well, that cleared up absolutely nothing for me . . . but Harry nodded, so I was pretty sure it was some mad muggle thing that he'd try to explain to me later. Besides, I didn't really care about monitoring spells. I wanted an explanation for what she said before.
"You slept with Paul and Charlie," I managed to say.
She sighed and seated herself again, looking tired and strained, but finally managing to look me in the eye as she answered.
"Yes."
"And?"
"And what?"
"Don't be obtuse with me, Hermione Jane Granger," I hissed, trying, and most definitely failing, to keep my temper. I'd calmed down a bit while she searched out those monitoring spells, mainly because I wondered what in blue blazes she was doing, but as soon as we started talking about her and Paul and Charlie . . . I started thinking about it, and picturing it, and I just kept getting madder and madder. "You fucked my brother, months ago, and I'm just now hearing about this?" I spat out. "Even Fred and George knew before I did!"
"Well, I certainly didn't tell them!" Hermione snapped back. "Charlie must have let it slip. He hasn't been . . . terribly happy with me ever since."
"Was the sex that bad, then?"
Yeah, it was a nasty thing to say, but I've never been good about holding back when I'm in a temper. Neither is Hermione, for that matter, as she proved right away.
"Charlie certainly wasn't complaining when I had him wailing like a banshee while I slid my tongue up his—"
"Merlin, how can you even talk about this?" I interrupted, practically tripping over myself in my need to cut her off before she finished that sentence. I was on my feet, yelling right into her face before I even realized I had stood up. My head was swimming and I felt sick and angry and it was her fault for doing this, for sleeping with my brother, my own brother and . . . and that's the closest thing I have to an explanation for what I say next.
"Aren't you the least bit embarrassed that you spent all of your supposed 'research' time opening your legs for every bloke who took the time to unzip his fl—"
Smack
For the first time in my life, I felt an inkling of pity for Draco Malfoy. I'd been so damned pleased when Hermione slapped the git back in third year that I'd never given much thought to how it felt to be smacked so hard. Stars danced in front of my eyes, but I still saw the light from the fireplace over to my left shift from orangey-gold to floo-green. By the time my vision cleared, she was gone.