Hermione pulled open the door of the Room of Requirement at the sound of a gentle triple knock. Both twins stood at the threshold, and her gaze flicked briefly from one to the other and checked the corridor for witnesses before she settled her hands on the shoulders of the tie-less, book-less one of the pair and stood on tip-toe to give him a quick peck on the cheek, stepping back before he had a chance to react. Then, she turned to the remaining twin, grinning as she used the tie he wore to tug him down to her height.

"Liar!" she accused him in a whisper. "So, the guy with the tie and the books will be Fred, huh?" The kiss she greeted this brother with was a far less sisterly version, George's arms wrapping around her after a couple of seconds and lifting her off her feet. "When are you going to remember that I've been able to tell you apart up close since first year?" she asked as they broke apart.

"It was worth a try," Fred drawled, as the couple kissed one last time before George set Hermione back down on her feet. "I definitely wouldn't have been complaining if I got that sort of welcome."

"You would have been after I knocked you on your arse," George raised his head to reply.

---

Trying not to obviously watch the twins was more difficult than Hermione would have believed, especially on an evening like this where she was unable to at least partially hide behind a stack of text books or use her studies as a diversion. The last evening of term had finally arrived and, as always, it was being marked by a party in the common room, a party that Ron and Harry wouldn't allow her to avoid, a party that wouldn't be a party if the twins weren't there to provide the life and soul... a party where she had to spend the whole evening in the same room as George and pretend he was nothing more than her best friend's brother.

Making matters worse, Colin Creevey suddenly seemed to have rekindled his interest in photography. Any slip could be recorded for posterity. It didn't bear thinking about... but somehow, none of it mattered when George and Fred perched themselves on the arms of the two-seater sofa that she and Ginny had been sharing. So George had to rest his arm along the back of the seat for balance, rather than around her shoulders, and she couldn't let her arm rest along his thigh, or lean into his side like she wanted to, but he could still make her laugh with his transparent protestations that the food and drink the twins brought with them was jinx-free. And, really, it was common enough for the twins to plonk themselves down like matching bookends on either side of Ginny that no one was going to think twice about the arrangement. Hermione belatedly realised the move had been planned and she couldn't resist giving the grinning witch a smile of thanks for diverting her, Harry and Ron on their way to their usual seats. Maybe they couldn't be as demonstrative as either she or George might like, but there was something to be said for shared secrets. It was there in every smile she, Ginny and the twins shared, and nothing could steal away the warmth it made Hermione feel, not even when the little shutterbug popped up out of nowhere and took shot after shot.

---

Hermione had thought that when the school had emptied until the only Gryffindors left were her, Harry, Jack Sloper and the Weasleys that it would have become easier for her and George to meet. Instead, with Harry and Ron actually making an attempt to follow the revision timetables that she had made up for them, her alone time seemed to have become all but nonexistent. When she went to the library, so did they. When she studied in the common room, so did they. On the rare spring day that was nice enough for her to take her books outside, so did they. She didn't dare try to make her way to the Room of Requirement. Heaven only knew what Harry and Ron would have said if her subconscious managed to conjure up that four-poster bed instead of a study room for three.

She had deliberately ended Ron's and Harry's 'working' days a couple of hours before hers. They had fewer subjects to revise after all. Even so, they seemed to think that they would be 'bad friends' if they left her to study on her own, so they would play chess or Exploding Snap nearby. She had even encouraged Ron and Ginny to practice their Quidditch in the lighter evenings, thinking that Harry might be inclined to watch, but he didn't go. Hermione couldn't tell whether this was because he was still upset over his ban or more of the general ennui that had been affecting him for the last week or so.

He and Cho had argued after Cho's friend had betrayed them all to Umbridge, ultimately causing Dumbledore's departure, and they had failed to make up, despite the fact that Cho, too, was staying over the holidays. The Ravenclaw Seeker also looked less than happy, but that was normal for Cho these days. If Harry had spent more of their time in the Great Hall mooning after Cho than he did staring into space, then Hermione might have been more inclined to believe that the break-up was behind his bad moods, but he barely seemed to notice Cho's existence one way or the other.

It might have been Dumbledore's absence, and really, the Umbridge situation had seemed more bearable when he was around, but this wasn't the first time that Dumbledore had been banished from the school and it hadn't had such a pronounced affect on Harry the last time. Granted, last time Dumbledore had been ejected because of Lucius Malfoy's manoeuvrings. This time, he had sacrificed himself on Harry's behalf, which should have left Harry feeling almost as guilty about it as she did. The DA had been her idea and, if she hadn't pestered Harry to go through with it or if she hadn't pressed him to teach everyone who wanted to learn, then Dumbledore would still be here... and, yet, she didn't think that that was what was bothering him.

No, it was something else. Harry claimed that Snape had cancelled their Occlumency lessons because there was no more that the spy could teach him, but he had avoided her eyes when he spoke. Ron said that Harry's dreams were, if anything, becoming more frequent even though Harry no longer talked to either of them about their content. Somehow, Hermione didn't think that Snape, the eternal perfectionist, was the sort to leave such an important job half-done, or not without good reason. She wondered if Harry would ever open up enough to tell them the truth. Surely, by now, he had to know that they'd both be there for him come what may, so why couldn't he trust them instead of bottling everything up? Then again, considering the secret she was keeping, it wasn't as if she had room to criticise.

She and George shared stolen moments, some under Harry's and Ron's noses. Thigh to thigh during meals in the Great Hall or, on the rare occasions when the twins appeared to study, even in the library. Notes small enough to slip unnoticed into pockets exchanged under the table. Brief clinches in the more hidden corridors when he ambushed her on her way back from the toilet, but it wasn't as if they could get away with repeating those tactics too often.

The only time that was truly her own was the time she took to unwind each day in the prefects' bathroom. She timed it so that she just had time to get back to the common room before curfew, soaking for long enough to get the kinks out of her neck and shoulders. The work she was putting in took its toll, though, and most nights by the time she got back to the common room, she could tell from one glance that there was no way she would manage to stay up later than Ron. George would sneak her an understanding smile, as if he could read both how exhausted she was and how much she wanted to stay in her eyes, though she hoped that she wasn't quite that obvious. There were limits to how oblivious even Harry and Ron could be.

She sighed as she dried herself off and put on her cotton cami-top and matching pyjama shorts, covering them over with a heavy towelling robe. She bundled up her day clothes, transferring her wand and the five pound coin her mother had sent her from her jeans pocket to her robe. Out of habit she checked the engraving on the edge, but for now it just showed the normal Latin inscription. It looked like it was going to be one more night where she would be first to sleep... but looks can be deceiving.

---

Hermione gaped at the scene that met her eyes when the Fat Lady swung aside to let her back into Gryffindor tower. Fred and Ginny appeared to have taken over Ron and Harry's game of chess, almost literally as if they had slid the board out from between the two friends and picked up where they left off, with George watching them from a nearby armchair. Ron and Harry were both slumped face down over the table and Jack Sloper sat in a wingback armchair, head tilted back, mouth open, a butter beer bottle dangling so loosely from his hand that it seemed it must fall any second.

George rose, tipping Crookshanks from his knee, and came to greet her, pulling her into what seemed like their first proper hug in weeks, even though it had only been five and a half days. Before he could lower his head and claim a kiss, however, Hermione was hissing at him under her breath and bracing her hands against his chest so that he couldn't close the gap between them again.

"This is insane. What have you done to them? What if they wake up?" Her eyes widened suddenly. "What if they don't wake up?"

"I told you so," Fred opined loudly across the room.

George gave a begrudging sigh, looked at the clock which indicated that there were still a few minutes left before curfew. George pulled the bag with Hermione's dirty laundry from her hand, dropped it onto a chair and gave Ginny a meaningful look, receiving a nod and a roll of the eyes in return. Hermione was still wondering what exactly it was that he was planning, when his shoulder made contact with her abdomen and his arm wrapped around the backs of her knees, so that when he straightened back up he carried her in a fireman's lift.

Hermione sputtered her indignation from her semi-inverted position as George carried her back toward the portrait hole. "George Weasley, if you don't put me down I'll—"

"You love me too much to hex me," George affirmed, possibly with a little more confidence than he really felt.

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but somehow she couldn't find the words.

---

When George finally set her back on her feet, she did her best to glare at him, bemused to find that her cat had followed them all the way to the seventh floor. "You are a complete Neanderthal," she accused.

"If by that you mean that I prefer to do my arguing and my making up away from my family's prying eyes, you're damn right."

George paced up and down in front of the tapestry of ballet dancing trolls until a door appeared in the opposite wall and then threw it open, holding out his arm in a gesture that invited Hermione to precede him into the room. Crookshanks strolled in as if the door had been opened especially for him.

"Who said we were going to..." She paused as she took in the details of the room's appearance. "Argue?" The room had stretched since they had last been in there. The bookshelves and the study table were still at the end of the room next to the balcony, and sitting right in the middle of the table was a largish rectangular parcel, wrapped in silver gift wrap and decorated with a bow. Next to it was a bottle of wine and a pair of glasses. Their sofa still faced the fireplace at the opposite end of the room, but between it and the table was the massive four-poster they had shared last week, the sheets turned back and strewn with white rose petals. Crookshanks, it seemed, had already identified this as the room's prime real estate and was in the middle of his routine of circling three times before he curled up into a ball. "George?"

"Just your time and your company," he rapidly interjected before she could jump to any conclusions. "A guy can be romantic without having an ulterior motive. And Ronnikins and the others will be fine. They'll wake up in a couple of hours, discover everyone's gone to bed and head for their dorm and sleep the rest of the night. There was something I wanted to give you and, well, this way, I thought even if you need to spend every waking hour studying, then maybe we can still manage some time together."

"You can't do that every night," Hermione pointed out, her voice far softer than its previous tone.

"No, but I could do it just once so that I can give you this." George picked up the parcel from the table and nodded in the direction of the sofa.

Hermione took the hint and made herself comfortable at one end. He passed the parcel to her and went back to the table for the wine while she stripped off the wrapping. By the time he took a seat at her side she had uncovered a large album bound in pale blue leather. She opened it to the front cover and found a large envelope.

"I told him we wanted photos of everyone as keepsakes what with it being our final year. Figured you might want copies as well. They're all the ones of everybody else." Hermione lifted the envelope and set it to one side to be confronted with a picture of her and George, sitting together on the last night of term, and her arm did rest along his thigh, and his arm was around her shoulder and, as she watched, the George in the photo leaned down and pressed a fleeting kiss on her uptilted face. "I thought you might want to keep the album just for us."

Hermione found herself blinking rather a lot as she turned the next few pages. There were about half a dozen shots of them. Some with Fred and Ginny in as well, even one where Ginny and Fred seemed to be covering Ron and Harry's eyes while she sat on George's lap, but for every page with an annotated and dated picture there were at least fifty blank ones and that said more to her than a thousand words.

She took the glass George passed her. "Tell me you didn't let Creevey develop these?" she inquired before sipping at the wine.

"Not a chance!" George reassured her. "We just paid him for the films. Me and Fred did all the work."

"You're still a bad, evil man for drugging Harry and Ron—" she said, stifling a yawn and taking another sip of her wine.

"Technically, it was actually Ginny that gave them the potion—"

"And you and your evil twin who brewed it no doubt, so you might as well just let me finish..." She arched an eyebrow and waited for his response.

George sat there in silence.

"Okay, so you're an evil, bad man, who's almost always up to no good... but as boyfriends go I think I hit it pretty damn lucky." She gave another yawn and followed it up with a frown. "Are you sure this is enough? I mean I feel awful about how little I've seen you."

"I've missed you. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't, but I know how much those exams mean to you... I'd have to be a right selfish git if I was the one that stopped you getting your eleven outstanding OWLs this close to the exams."

"You really think—"

"I really think—"

Hermione set her glass down on the floor and let her robe slide from her shoulders as she crossed the room. "Come to bed." She glanced back over her shoulder to see that George was already back on his feet. "I've got to be up early in the morning."