Secrets (Fireworks Series #6)

Hermione lounged on the old sofa in the Room of Requirement. She watched George's back as he hunkered down in front of the fireplace, raking over the glowing embers before adding more coals. He did it naturally, almost absently, and yet it was one thing she'd never quite been able to manage without magic. It all came of too many years of gas fires and pilot lights, she supposed. Fire making, it seemed to her, was a truly arcane art that could only be learned by a sort of osmosis over an entire childhood of watching someone else do it before you were finally ready to perform the magic yourself. Every time she tried to light the fire in the common room, either she seemed to smother it or all the kindling would burn away without so much as one coal taking light.

Finally, it seemed as if George were content with the gently smoking pyre. He swivelled quickly and grinned when he caught her staring. He held up a hand that was streaked with coal dust. "I bet you'd look ever so cute with a big black smudge on the end of your nose."

"You w—" Hermione yelped, her body tensing up, but she didn't waste the breath needed for the word 'wouldn't'. Instead, as George took a long step toward her, she half-vaulted half-rolled over the sofa's back.

George briefly assessed the likelihood of going through the sofa rather than over it if he stood on it and, deciding that it wasn't worth the risk, he took the longer path around.

Hermione stood on the far side of the table, her weight shifting from one foot to the other, ready to take off in whichever direction was necessary to keep several feet of fairly solid wood between her and George.

George feinted to the left but then took off anticlockwise around the table.

Hermione lost a fraction of a second before she could get moving in the right direction but then took off again, matching George yard for yard. She made another three-quarters circuit of the table before she swerved right, rounding the end of the sofa and diving for where her wand lay on the hearth rug.

There was a loud crack, and she found she was no longer alone on the floor. George's well-muscled body was stretched out next to hers, his grubby fingers just a few inches from her face. She only just managed to get her wand pointed in the right direction and yelp the command, "Scourgify!" before he took her chin in his newly-clean hand and guided her mouth to his.

The pendulum clock on one wall loudly ticked away the seconds, but no one listened to it. The hand that had gripped her chin moved to cradle her face and then its fingers tangled in her hair. Hermione felt herself scooped close against George's frame with his other arm and then rolled over so that he cushioned her from the cold solidity of the flagstone floor that lay under the thin rug. With an effort of will, she lifted her head and looked down into laughing eyes. "You're incorrigible," she accused.

George quirked one eyebrow in teasing acknowledgement. "And you like it," he added, sounding more than a little smug.

Hermione felt a wash of colour making its way to her cheeks and tried to quash it back. "I didn't come here to be your plaything," she retaliated in a lightly mocking tone.

"That's okay," George answered. "I can be yours instead." He accompanied his words with a gentle squeeze to her bum before the laughter in his eyes dwindled away, and he craned his neck upward to give her one more slow, serious, longing kiss. His hand dropped from her hair, and his head fell back to the floor.

Hermione's eyelids flickered open. Her face was so close to his that she almost drew back, but she found herself trapped by the look in those eyes. The twins had never exactly been big on hiding their emotions. Theirs was a different kind of duplicity. Nevertheless, what she saw in those hazel eyes, other than the fact that they could look far more greenish than she might have believed, was different. It felt as if he wasn't simply allowing her to see who he really was. He was willing her to see.

"Tell me a secret," he whispered.

"What? Why?" Hermione blustered, but it was more because he had taken her by surprise than through any fear that he'd misuse the information.

"I may be incorrigible, my girl, but, believe it or not, I'm not just here for the snogging. I want to get to know you better. I want to know all about you... all the things you dream about doing, what your favourite subject is, where you want to live when you get a place of your own, where you'd like to go on holiday, what scares you most, what your favourite colour is. All of it. All the bits of the Hermione Jean Granger picture."

"No, you don't," Hermione demurred, embarrassed. "If I tried to tell you all that, you'd be rolling your eyes and waiting for me to finish."

"Okay, all that except the bits about emancipation for house-elves who don't want to be emancipated," George qualified.

"That's—"

"Noble and caring, which are a couple of the things I rather like about you, but it's also completely misguided and it's something I already know."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, only for George to silence her with a kiss. "I'm sure there are a whole lot of things we don't necessarily agree on," he said as he set her free, "but if we argue now, then we're not going to have time to make up properly before you go, and I don't want you being mad with me overnight. That might lead to curses and other badness, so let's just agree to disagree."

Part of Hermione wanted to try to convince him, another part knew that, unlike Harry and Ron who had joined S.P.E.W. in the hopes of keeping her quiet, George would be just as stubborn as she could be. It was old ground. Sometime, when they had the luxury of whole days, or maybe even nights, together, then, maybe she'd have time to try to talk him round. Tonight their time was growing short. Quidditch practice would end soon, as would Harry's Occlumency lesson and, if he or Ron came looking for her and she wasn't in either the library or the common room, then they might begin to wonder where she'd gone, and that was one secret she wanted to keep for a long time yet.

"My favourite colour is blue," she told George, "but sometimes I like to wear pink just to remind myself I'm a girl."

A wry smile came to George's face. "Anyone who makes you feel less than womanly is an ignorant berk," he said, but chose not to name her two closest friends.

"Your turn," Hermione insisted.

"I'd like to go to India," George responded. "Other places, too, but I'd love to see a tiger in the wild before it's too late."

"Oh!" exclaimed Hermione. "I mean I was going to say that I'd like to go to Italy and see all the artwork, but yours is better."

She bit her lip as she considered what to say next. "Assuming I could Apparate to work from anywhere, I'd like to live in a little cottage somewhere with its own beach... not necessarily a warm beach where you could swim but somewhere where you could go for walks in the evening. Somewhere where there aren't any streetlights and you can really see the sky. And, then, later, if I had a family, I'd like an old place, somewhere with character, maybe in a little village. Somewhere small enough that everybody knows everybody else."

George grinned. "Any of those kids you're imagining have red hair?" he asked.

Hermione did her best to put on a stern expression. "None of your business," she told him.

"I hope it might be very much my business, but I'll let it slide for now." George's expression grew more serious, all levity leaving it. "We think we found somewhere for the joke shop," he said in a subdued voice. "It's sitting vacant and we've arranged a meeting next week to see it. If it's okay we should be able to get the lease sorted out before the end of the holidays. It comes with a flat."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Hermione asked him equally quietly. "It's what you've wanted for a long time."

"It's a wonderful thing," George answered with a bitter grin, "...and totally abysmal timing." He reached up to stroke a knuckle down the side of her face as if memorising every curve. "Your turn."

"I've been researching Animagi for about a year and a half," Hermione said, sounding almost embarrassed. "Not all the time, just when things have been quiet," she added hurriedly as George's jaw dropped open slightly.

"Herm-i-on-e," George protested. "Will you stop expecting me to react how Ron would? Do you really think that Fred and me made all the stuff for the joke shop without opening a book? Didn't it occur to you that we would probably have poisoned ourselves a dozen times over if we'd just thrown it all together? I say, if you want something, you go get it, and, knowing you, if you've set your mind to it, one of these days you'll do it."

"We-ell, it took Sirius and Harry's dad three years working together, but from what I've heard about Peter Pettigrew, if he could do it, then anyone can... and with things getting bad again, it might be useful."

"Have you tried talking to McGonagall?" George asked.

Hermione shook her head. "If she thought I was serious she'd have to inform the Ministry, and we all know that anything the Ministry knows, Lucius Malfoy knows."

"I could always try asking her," George suggested. "As a hypothetical thing... One of the big advantages of this whole secret romance thing. She'd never think it was for you."

"George, which three OWLs did you pass? Charms, Herbology and..."

"Defence."

"Somehow, I don't think that she'd believe it was for you." Hermione pursed her mouth slightly and raised an eyebrow. "And, no, I'm not going to ask Sirius either, because then he'd want to bring Harry into it, and Harry has enough to do keeping up with classes and Quidditch and, now, Occlumency. If Sirius could teach himself, so can I. Your turn again," she prompted. "What scares you most?"

George's eyes stared into Hermione's for what seemed like forever before he answered. "Losing people I care about," he answered, both his arms wrapping around her, holding her tight in a way that hinted strongly that he was including her in that description. "I don't think Mum's ever been the same after her brothers were... Well, that's why she's so over-protective... The idea that one day you're part of a family and then the next you're all that's left..."

"You don't let it show," Hermione answered, not quite sure what else to say.

"If you let it change how you live your life, then You-Know-Who's already won." George gave a grimace.

"I get that. I think, what scares me is letting everyone down. I don't know what I'd do if there was some huge battle and I just froze like I did with that troll back in first year... or if Ron or Harry went and got themselves cursed or something. I mean neither of them even took Arithmancy or Ancient Runes so if there was any curse-breaking to do—"

"Then, I hope you'd damn well fetch Bill," George cut in. "Don't get me wrong, Hermione, I know you better than to think you'd let Harry face whatever's coming on his own, but it's not as if it's just the three of you. You know the Order will help any way it can."

Hermione gave a weary smile. "It just always seems to work out that way... Your turn," she added, obviously hoping for a change of subject, but the striking of the clock interrupted her.

George wrapped an arm around her waist to stop her getting up right away, not wanting to part on such a sombre note. "My turn," he reminded her. "If you repeat this in front of Angelina then I'm a dead man," he whispered in her ear, "but, right now, I'm actually glad I got thrown off the Quidditch team." He let his arms drop to the floor.

"In that case, you better not tell her that you're not the only one." She dropped a quick peck on the end of his freckle-dusted nose and pushed herself first to all fours and then upright.

With a regretful sigh, George got up and helped her on with her robes.

"Tomorrow?" he asked, as they both paused in front of the door.

"Only if you can stay up later than Ron and Harry," Hermione sighed. "Speaking of which, I better head for the library."

"I'll stay up. I can even stay up tonight if you want."

"Well, I'm not sure I could," Hermione admitted. "Some idiots let off a whole bunch of fireworks yesterday and kept me up half the night. I plan on an early night tonight in preparation for tomorrow."

She threw her arms around George's neck and drew him down for one last kiss, even though she knew it would leave her looking flushed and breathless when she arrived at the library. She opened the door and stepped through but she couldn't resist turning back again.

"You better wait a few minutes before you leave."

George nodded. "I'm not meeting Fred for a while. We're going down to Hagrid's."

"You'll tell him—"

"We'll tell him," George confirmed.

Hermione smiled primly, as if he'd just taken care of one more thing on her mental to-do list, and strode off along the corridor toward the library, trying to convince herself that tomorrow really wasn't all that far away.

George watched her through the ever-narrowing gap as he pushed the door closed, grinning when she looked back over her shoulder. Afterward, he took his wand from his pocket and cast a cleaning spell on his left hand. Hermione had cleaned his right hand and stopped him getting dust on her face, but when she got back to her dormitory for the night and took off her robes, she was going to find a nice big sooty handprint directly over the right back pocket of her jeans. No doubt when she discovered that little secret she'd make him pay... and he was looking forward to every minute of it.