For Mandy, for being a kind and generous pimp (in the best possible sense of the word).

Fred unfolded the Marauders' Map, scanning for the dots that were marked Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. Both were settled firmly by the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common Room. "No luck," he announced. "We're going to have to wait until they go down to the Great Hall for dinner before we sneak Hermione back in." He looked at his watch. "Which, if Ron's stomach is running to schedule, should be within the next fifteen minutes." He lowered himself down and seated himself on the floor with his back to one of the passage walls. "Exploding snap, anyone?"

---

"I'm fine, Ron," Hermione insisted, waving him away from the pair of sofas where she, Ginny and Crookshanks were sitting. The girls had a chess board on the coffee table between the two sofas, but their moves were few and far between.

Ron tilted his head forward so that he looked at her through his over long fringe with puppy-dog hopeful eyes.

"Not that fine," she quickly added. "Look it up in a book like everybody else."

"But you know the answers, don't you?" Ron wheedled.

"Yes, because I finished mine two weeks ago, but I came down here so I could talk to Ginny after being on my own in the dorm all day, not to do your Potions essay for you."

"Just let me look at yours, then," Ron tried.

"Don't you think that with less than two months to go before the exams you should be able to do your own homework?" Hermione asked.

"Why break the habit of a lifetime?" Fred asked, taking the seat beside Ginny and scanning the chess board. "Whose move is it?"

"Mine," Hermione replied, but Fred had to lip read her answer as she was drowned out.

Ron snorted. "I didn't notice you and George passing Potions."

George gave his youngest brother a scathing look as he scooped Crookshanks out of the space beside Hermione and sat down next to her. "No claws," he warned the ginger fluffball as he put the cat down on his lap and scratched behind his ears. "That's because if we'd passed, we'd have spent four hours a week for the past two years in the charming company of Severus Snape. Now why would we want to do that?"

Crookshanks began to purr loudly.

"Not to mention the extra hours of homework and detentions we cunningly avoided," Fred added.

"Knight to queen five?" George suggested, ignoring Ron's slack-jawed surprise.

"Gits," Ron muttered, stomping back to the table where Harry was sitting. He flipped his Potions book closed and rolled up the parchment that bore nothing more than the essay's title.

"You deliberately failed Potions?" Hermione whispered to George as she made the move he had suggested.

"Yep," the twins answered as one.

"Transfiguration?" she asked, almost dreading the answer.

"Well," began Fred, "McGonagall's not so bad."

"But she does give out far too much homework," George added.

"We thought it would get in the way of our product development," Fred explained.

George tilted his head slightly. "And Quidditch practice, only that's not an issue any more."

Hermione shook her head in amazement. She simply couldn't imagine ever trying anything but her hardest for any exam. The twins' outlook on life sometimes seemed completely at odds with her own, and yet she was already having trouble imagining anyone who might complement her better than George. Their chosen paths were drastically different, but he accepted that, and he didn't allow it to detract from the support he gave her. He didn't nag her for being who she was. He understood when other facets of her life had to take precedent, but those times he gave her the space she needed meant the times she spent with him were like moments of sunshine on a cloudy day. She felt three little words burble up inside her, wanting to make themselves heard, but those were the sort of words that should be spoken when they were alone. At least the first time.

"So, are you going to tell me what those books are for yet?" George asked, as Fred moved Ginny's bishop.

"If Harry and Ron ever actually start working, yes," Hermione agreed.

The twins continued to direct the course of the chess game while the quartet chatted, and Hermione couldn't even pretend to be surprised when the game ended in a stalemate. The twins were just too alike not to be able to see each other's strategies. Hermione looked over to the table where Ron and Harry were sitting and found that they were both reading through her History of Magic notes and occasionally making notes of their own.

She slid the chess board along the table until it sat squarely between the twins and began to rummage in the bag under her seat, pulling out some of the writing parchment George had bought her, along with a quill and some ink. She took two sheets from the sheaf of paper, setting them down side by side immediately in front of her. Then, she took out her wand and checked again that Harry and Ron were too occupied to pay attention. She gave a word of command and made a complicated gesture over the parchment with her wand.

To someone less observant, it might have seemed that the pages remained unchanged, but George saw the way that the marbled texture of the second sheet swirled until it matched that of the first in every detail.

Hermione picked up her quill and dipped it into the ink. She slipped from her seat and knelt on the floor to write more comfortably at the low table. 'This is the private journal of G.S.' As she spelled out the words onto the first sheet of parchment, they appeared more faintly but still clearly legible on the second sheet.

"Why isn't it as clear?" Ginny asked.

"The charm links the two pieces of parchment so that anything which changes one sheet results in a change in the other, but the effect doesn't go beyond the boundaries of the parchment. The ink that soaks into the sheet changes the parchment. Therefore, the change is replicated on the second sheet, but any ink that simply sits on top of the sheet is outside the area affected by the charm. If I'd used two sheets of plastic, then nothing would soak in and I don't think it would show up on the second sheet at all. The books I chose are actually watercolour sketch pads rather than parchment, so they're more absorbent than normal paper, and if it works with this..."

In the gap between their bodies, out of line of sight of everyone in the room except the four who were at the table, George's fingers interlaced with Hermione's and gave a gentle squeeze. "That's my girly swot," he announced, and the look of pride and affection in his eyes warmed Hermione as much as any kiss, though it made her long even more for the privacy to claim that kiss.