CHAPTER ONE | BAD INFLUENCE

A soft light falls through the window in Fred and George's room, indicating that it's an early morning hour. It annoys Fred, the only twin who's awake and can't fall back asleep since he suddenly woke up. He already tried lying down in every possible position; nothing helps. His gaze travels to look at George, who looks deeply asleep, as he contemplates waking him up. A moment later, Fred decides against it — he isn't sure that his twin will even be able to be woken up this early unless he'll wake up on his own.

Practically teasing him, Fred's stomach growls hungrily. As he rolls his eyes, he realizes he definitely won't be able to fall asleep in this state. Sighing, he pushes himself off his bed and quietly makes his way out of the room. After closing the door behind him and walking down the stairs, he relaxes a bit but still tries not to make too much noise. The silence in the Burrow feels almost unnatural, which is why Fred feel more comfortable when he hears someone in the kitchen. When he reaches the last step, he can see Hermione in there, making herself tea. Her hair is messier than usual, indicating that she hasn't been awake for long. He watches her for a moment, noticing how careful her movements are and how she seems to enjoy the quietness so much that it makes him suspect that she actually dislikes mornings with his family. He can't blame her though, quite the opposite — he enjoys watching her so relaxed.

Taking the final step, he clears his throat and looks at her with expectation, waiting for her to notice him. Surprised with someone else's presence, she jumps, causing Fred to chuckle. ''Morning,'' he greets her as he makes his way through the kitchen.

Meeting his gaze, Hermione smiles as she recognizes him and says, ''Morning. Would you like some tea?''

He smiles back and says, ''Yes please, Granger.''

Her brown eyes travel away from him and she pulls another cup from one of the cabins. Fred takes a few more seconds to look at her as she pours the hot drink into two cups. He decides that he dislikes the idea of her catching him looking at her and starts looking through a few of the cabins for something he can have for breakfast. He comes across bread leftovers and jam. Without bothering to take a plate, he smears the jam on the bread and takes a bite.

''Why are you awake so early?'' Hermione asks and hands him his tea.

''Don't know,'' he says as he finishes chewing. ''I couldn't fall back asleep. Why are you?''

She brings the cup to her lips and blows to try and make the water colder. It's a slightly distracting sight for Fred, but he stays composed.

''It's been a bit of a struggle for me to fall asleep since the war,'' she admits with a shrug and takes a small sip of tea.

Frowning, Fred puts his cup aside. He wasn't aware that Hermione is suffering from insomnia. He noticed her red eyes and the bags under her eyes over a week ago, but he didn't think a serious lack of sleep is the reason. He silently scolds himself for not noticing something this important about the girl he has been paying more and more attention to over the years.

''It's never bad to be up early on Christmas through,'' Fred says while he scolds himself again, this time for the stupid things he's saying. ''Did you open any of the presents yet?''

Hermione follows his gaze to the Christmas tree that is standing in the corner of the Weasley's living room and says, ''No, I would hate to open mine on my own.''

''Good thing I'm here, then,'' he replies with a smile. Not wasting any time, he takes another bite of his breakfast and walks across the room towards the tree. Aware that she's watching, he meets Hermione's gaze and nods at her to follow him. ''Come on, Granger,'' he says when he sets his cup of tea on the coffee table.

The girl is still standing where she was, her eyes set on his and her expression is skeptical. Fred isn't willing to give up so easily and he stares at her brown eyes for several seconds, until she surrenders. Sighing, she grabs her own cup and walks towards him. In the meantime, he approaches the Christmas tree and starts looking through the presents.

''Why do you call me 'Granger'?'' she asks.

Apparently, looking for one particular gift under the Weasley's Christmas tree isn't as easy as Fred thought, but he tries not to show that his long search is beginning to annoy him. Instead, he smirks at the question and asks a bit playfully, ''What would you want me to call you?''

He hears her putting her cup on the table as well before she approaches him and says, ''There is always my name.''

He wants to tell that it is her name, just her last name, but she is suddenly standing next to him with arms crossed over her chest and says, ''Fred, I really don't think we should open our presents now. It takes out all the fun out of the present opening.''

Half smiling, he turns to look at her and holds out a box that has her name on it. ''Don't worry, love, I only want you to open mine now,'' he explains.

A look of understanding crosses Hermione's face and her arms fall to her sides. ''Oh,'' she says quietly. ''But only if you'll open mine.''

With a short nod, he says, ''Agreed.''

Crouching next to him, she takes the present from him and puts it on her knees. Her brown eyes scan all the presents for a moment before she leans over and pulls out quite a big box.

"You're making me share my present with George?" Fred asks in horror.

She looks embarrassed but then she smiles and says, "That's a present for both of you. But I also got something for each one of you separately."

On cue, she pulls out another wrapped box. Fred leaves the present for him and George by the tree, deciding to wait until his twin will be with him to open it, and takes the smaller one that has his name on it. Together, the pair stands up and takes a seat on the couch. The fact that Hermione got him his own present makes stop smiling a struggle for Fred. He steals a glance at her and sees how her eyes shine with curiosity. She catches him looking, yet he doesn't look away.

"Shall we?" He asks.

She nods and they waste no time. They start opening and ripping the wraps and even now Hermione manages to do it more neatly than he does. He could comment on that, but he's too focused on the presents, wondering what he got from her.

"Fred Weasley, you're a bad influence on me," she mutters, although her expression, especially her smile, give away her excitement.

"Don't pretend that you're not enjoying it, love," he smirks at her.

Hermione finishes opening her present first since hers is smaller. The redhead watches as she holds the medium sized box with a frown that fades a second after she opens it. As much as he likes gifts and wants to know what she got him, he can't give up on seeing her reaction to what he got her. A half smile tugs at his lips when her expression lights up.

"This is beautiful," she says in awe and chuckles. She's holding a rectangle shaped drawing of a beautiful pastoral view that's tied by a ribbon so it can be used as a bookmark. "For a second, I thought it was going to be jewelry."

In response, Fred puts his hand above his heart and says, "And I thought you had a better opinion than that on me." Then, he pauses. "Or did you want jewelry?"

Luckily, she chuckles and shakes her head, immediately making him feel relieved. "It could actually be used as a portkey, so if you want to read somewhere peacefully, you just rub it four times and it takes you there. Each one they make is unique, so you won't find yourself there with other people," he explains.

She smiles as her warm eyes scan her present for a few seconds, taking in the details before she looks at Fred. He's still looking at her and butterflies fill his stomach when their gazes meet. It's not news to him that she makes him feel this way, but he does try to hide it from anyone who shouldn't know about his little crush — which is currently everyone.

"Thank you, Fred," Hermione says, sounding genuine.

Fred might as well explode from how proud he is of himself. His crush is a rather new thing — or so he tells himself — and he has been making sure to be careful about the witch that caught his attention. Even though Hermione has been best friends with his little brother for years now, Fred himself doesn't know her the best. But when Christmas was approaching, he just couldn't help but want to wow the girl away with a perfect present. He decided it when hers and his brother's unofficial breakup — if you can call it that — was rather fresh. Maybe it wasn't the best way of thinking considering he's Ron's brother since Fred doesn't want to come through as a git, but it seems like the two best friends are happier being just best friends.

"My turn," he says and moves his attention to the gift in his lap.

He's much less careful with the wrapping, but it doesn't matter because he's dying to see what Hermione got him. Just him. Something almost falls off once he's done with the unwrapping and it takes him a moment to realize that his gift consists of two things. Merlin, Hermione is the best.

In his lap lies a book named "Guinness World Records" with the mention of the current year and on the floor lies a colorful tie. When he picks up the tie, he takes a moment to study the most colorful pattern he has ever seen that has the word "Haha!" in almost every color. The accessory makes him smile. He has never seen anything like it.

"I saw the tie in a random store and immediately thought of George and you," Hermione explains as she watches Fred's reaction. "The book is a muggle one. It mentions many records that were broken over the world this year. Some of them are quite strange… I thought it could help you with new ideas for your shop since you seemed to focus on that recently."

The second part of the explanation almost makes the red-head blush. When Fred realized he might fancy Hermione, it took him time to take it in and whenever anyone would ask him why he's being unusually quiet, he lied and said that he was trying to come up with new ideas for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, George and his joke shop. He hopes Hermione won't find out the truth or he will be so embarrassed he'll never face her again.

Instead of letting her suspect anything, he smiles widely and says, "This is brilliant, Hermione. Thank you."

The witch beams with satisfaction and continues eating her breakfast, which is yet to have gone cold, while Fred curiously starts flipping through the pages of the book. He wouldn't describe himself as a book lover, but he's interested things Muggles have managed to achieve to be mentioned in this book of records, especially the weird things.

The two sit peacefully like that for a bit over half an hour, eating breakfast and discussing the book. They laugh and awe at the tallest person in the world, the most flexible one, the one with the most tattoos, at the largest dancing event that has been held and so on. However, their small bubble slowly disappears when more and more people come down for breakfast and for the presents unwrapping. The morning ends when Hermione is busy studying the presents Harry got, and the Weasley twins are opening the rest of their presents. However, even with all the excitement and distractions around, Fred finds it almost impossible to stop thinking about the younger witch who seems to be becoming more special for him than he'd ever expected.

Author's Note: So this is a small story I'm working on for an unofficial OTPs things I'm doing. This specific story is going to be around five chapters and very sweet, I promise. I'm not going to have a schedule for the updates, but I don't want to drag this too much since it's short.

Please let me know what you think, feedback is motivating :)