Chapter 6

I was braiding Hermione's hair in a comfortable silence. It was earlier than anyone except Mi would have gotten up, especially on a Saturday, but I told her that she should come wake me up if she needed me, and she had. I had dragged George with me to sit with her at breakfast the day after our breakdowns, and just like that we were all friends again. That didn't mean that I didn't feel the need to make it up to her though, we…I had put her through a lot.

Last night she had another fight with Harry and Ron, who were still ignoring her. She had tried to get them to realize why she had turned in his broom, but they were little prats about it. I don't know how they missed the bags under her eyes screaming that she just needed to sleep, or why they didn't try to take care of her. But Mi had come knocking lightly on my door the last three days, asking me to just sit with her and braid her hair early in the morning.

I finished the plait and gave it a little tug, letting her know it was finished. In return, she raised her arms and slid the hair band off her wrist to pass it to me. Normally she would clamber across the couch to sit next to me until breakfast, some book or another braced against her bent knees. She would absently play with the end of her braid while she leaned back against the arm of the couch, even when the common room began to fill up, before she would tuck her bookmark into place and tell me it was time for breakfast.

This morning, however, she stayed on my normal side of the couch and leaned her head on my right knee. I felt, more than heard her sigh deeply. "Fred?" Her voice was quiet, fitting in the early morning.

"Yes?" I would listen to anything, take any lecture just to keep her cuddled up to me like this. Even if I was perched on the arm of the couch with nothing to lean back against.

"Sorry for waking you up again." She normally waited until breakfast to apologize for that, even though I always told her it was unnecessary.

"Mi, I told you to wake me up. You don't need to apologize or thank me. I'm here when you need, even if it is before six in the morning."

She was still turned away from me, but she leaned further into me. Luckily she was leaning on the side that was braced against the couch. "Still. I've been waking you up way earlier than you normally would." I gave her braid a tug, and she was silent for a moment. "Did you know that Harry is taking Patronus lessons with Professor Lupin? He has such a bad reaction to the Dementors."

I hadn't known that, and I made a noise that articulated my surprise quite well for such an early hour. "Patronus? That's advanced stuff."

Hermione straightened up proudly, no longer leaning against my leg. "Harry is one of the best in the year for Defense. If anyone could do it, it would be him. Especially since he has a real reason to learn it, he really only applies himself to practical things. And quidditch." Even though they were fighting, she was standing up for him against even the hint that he couldn't do something. I put my hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently.

"I know Mi, I'm just surprised that he would ask for extra lessons, no matter how applicable they are. He's not exactly fond of extra work, you have to bug him for him to do his normal work." That made me wonder exactly how much the boys had fallen behind in the weeks since term started back up. Probably a lot. Better to not mention that to Hermione though.

She turned to look at me over her shoulder and jumped a little, as if I surprised her. "You have to be uncomfortable, here." Her warmth left my legs as she shifted closer to her normal spot on the side of the couch furthest from the fire, but today she didn't move all the way to the end of it. I slid down from the arm as gracefully as possible with my legs half-asleep, which is to say not at all.

That brought the sly smile that Mi has special for when people make fools of themselves and a giggle. I tried to get that smile onto her face as often as possible, it was perfect. Stupid Charlie, stupid Charlie! I gathered my dignity, and my limbs, and slowly settled myself against the arm that was much better as a pillow than a perch. Hermione leaned against the back of the couch with her upper body turned so that she could watch me. My legs were crossed, my knees just barely brushing against her leg. She shifted in a way that made her leg press in more to my knees and had her sink into the couch a little further.

The silence from earlier settled around us comfortably, so I felt comfortable closing my eyes. The fire made the room a comfortable temperature, and my brain decided to shut down. Sleep would be nice, real cuddles would be nice. We could go back to sleep on the couch together, like we did that day in the library. Mmm.

Those thoughts are dangerous. She's my friend, she's only 14. Bloody hell. I opened my eyes to see her eyes focused on my face. I could get used to that… I shook my head a little to try to get rid of my wanderings, but it didn't work. She pulled her hair over towards her face and used it to cover her mouth, her eyes drifting toward her lap. I didn't know how she wasn't sleeping more, she was up so early every day.

"Mi?" my voice came out far squeakier than it should have, it was supposed to be manly. Her head lifted up and her eyes met mine. The light from the fire gave her hair a fiery glow that seemed to fit her perfectly. Her eyes were sparkling, they seemed ready to burst with tears that I knew she wouldn't release. Not here, where anybody could walk by and see. Asking her why she couldn't sleep had seemed like a good idea only moments ago, but when I opened my mouth to speak, nothing would come out. It was obvious why she couldn't sleep, what she saw as her only friends had abandoned her. I had been a part of that.

Instead of trying to ask how she was, or tell her that it would be alright, both seemingly thoughtful but obviously the wrong thing to say, I decided to just uncross my legs and hold my arms out. After a moment's hesitation where I thought she would say no, she bit her lip and shifted. It was clumsy as all hell, and at one point she muttered an ouch under her breath, but she settled into my arms. Hermione's head laid on my right shoulder, her face tucked into my neck.

I wrapped my arms around her to reach for the pillow next to where she had been sitting to shove it under my back so that we could lay down more. Her breathing on my neck started out shuddery and uneven. I did the only thing I could think of and wrapped my arms around her. She was so warm and soft. I turned my face into her hair and muttered to her nonsensically. "It's okay, you're here, I won't let them hurt you." On and on, I just said whatever came to mind that seemed vaguely comforting.

After a few minutes and three wet drops making it onto my neck, her breathing evened out, becoming long and slow. I just kept whispering into her hair and rubbing her back. She was finally getting some sleep, I would stay here as long as I needed to.

My right leg had fallen asleep long ago, my right arm was on well on its way to joining its friend. My neck ached from being contorted for so long, and my lower back was protesting the position we were laying in. I wouldn't trade this for anything though, she needed sleep and I wanted to hold her. The sun was just starting to peek in through the windows, joining the fire in illuminating Mione.

It was a Sunday, so we were probably going to be the only ones awake for some time. Well, Mi wasn't awake. Mi.

George shook me awake with a finger to his lips to signal me to be quiet. I wasn't in our room for some reason, and I was really warm. The morning came back to me quickly.

I wasn't braced against the arm of the couch any longer, and though my right arm was completely dead, my leg had feeling again. The gold throw pillow I had used to cushion my back early was now being properly used as my pillow, and Hermione's head rested on my shoulder, mouth open and snoring lightly. She had shrunk back into the couch and my body covered hers from the outside world completely.

George leaned over and whispered into my ear, "didn't think she'd like everyone to see that first thing in the morning. Meet you in the room when you're ready." I tucked my head down to let him know my appreciation. Hermione didn't like to be talked about and this would be fuel for gossip now that the masses were back at Hogwarts. I turned my attention back to the sleeping girl. I wanted to stay there, dead arm and all, but George was right.

"Mi, Mi wake up. Come on Hermione, wakey wakey." She shifted her head a little, allowing blood to return to my arm. "Mi Mi Mi." I just started talking quietly, getting a little louder now and then to wake her up. Her arm tightened around me before she opened her eyes. "There we go Mi, time to wake up. How early did you wake me up before?"

"Wass five. Seep now." She couldn't form words yet, and she tucked her head back into my neck. I shrugged my shoulder slightly to jostle her.

"Nope nope sleeping beauty, time to wake up. You should go back to bed before your roommates wake up." I hated to say the words, but they needed said.

She reached up to rub her eyes before sitting up slowly. "Maybe I will. Thanks Fred." She leaned over and kissed my cheek before sliding her legs to the floor and swaying groggily to the girls' staircase. After she disappeared from sight, I headed back to mine and George's room.

I was greeted with an entirely too cheerful twin who shoved me over to my bed and laughed. "I won the bet!" I had no idea what he was talking about and was far too tired to think anymore. I thought naps were supposed to be nice and refreshing?

"Bet?" The words felt thick in my mouth. George nodded, but didn't explain.

"Go back to bed you lug. I'll grab brekkie, we have Quidditch this afternoon. Wood won't be happy if you're too tired to stay on your broom."

The next time I woke up, I did actually feel better. Georgie was gone, but there was a plate of breakfast with a warming charm over it next to my bed. I waved my wand to check the time, still had an hour and a half until practice. I happily munched down my food and pulled over the notebook we were using to come up with ideas.

Our ideas had names now, and some later pages had notes on our experiments, like the actual recipes for the potions and what not to do, like use moly without stirring. The list I was looking at had just the names of ideas and a brief description of what they would do. Fainting Fancies, Ton-Tongue Toffees, and Canary Creams were some of our more fleshed out potion-based ideas, and of course our trick wands were already in various stages of success. One of the most exciting ideas that George and I had come up with were Extendable Ears, which would allow us to eavesdrop at will. Unfortunately, some of the charms that we needed for those were still beyond our reach. We had "borrowed" some of the library's old advanced charms books for study, but we still hadn't found the right combination to make them work.

Our cauldron was empty this morning, but that wasn't unusual for right now. Our allowance fund having dropped to almost nothing over the last term and only getting it back a few weeks ago meant that we had precious few ingredients to experiment with, so we were saving them for when we were both in the room. We had temporarily abandoned the Fainting Fancies, but we wouldn't leave them on hold for too long. George and I were going to up the intensity of the wards on our room when we got back from summer so that if the potion exploded spectacularly again, everything would be contained.

I jotted down a new idea for a product, Fever…Fudge? Yes, Fever Fudge. It would be part of our Skiving Snackbox line, meant to get people out of class so they can do better things, like send hair cleaning potions hovering around Snape's head, or red hair dye in the Slytherin's dorm. Hmmm. We should do a hair-based prank soon. I added it to my notebook.

I sketched out the details of what would need to happen for Operation Shampoo Snape for the next hour or so, scribbling out what wouldn't work as I went. George would look at it later but I had a feeling that that this would be a good one. Eventually, I stopped writing ideas and pulled out a piece of parchment.

I had meant to just sketch for a few minutes, but the next thing I knew, George was flying into the room, scrambling for his Quidditch robes. I looked up from my drawing of Hermione's face, quickly hiding it from George's view. He would never stop making fun of me for that. I lunged for my nightstand and threw the parchment and the notebook in the drawer, hoping that he would think my scrambling was for the same reason as his: we were almost late for Quidditch! I threw the robes on and grabbed the protective stuff and my bat before snatching my broom from its spot in the corner.

George finished just before I did, cursing under his breath the whole time. He was breathing heavily, and I checked him over before he scrambled through the door. "You're good Georgie boy," I declared, sounding completely out of breath. He checked the time again and groaned.

"We're not going to make it Fred. You heard Wood last time!" Unfortunately, I had. We were late to practice about a month ago because we had been hiding dungbombs in Filch's office. Completely juvenile, but it works so well. Because it was so much lower than our usual caliber of prank, nobody ever suspected us for doing it. Filch had come back before he should have, so we had to hide, which led to us being late to practice. "We might be the best beaters the school has ever seen, but Wood would beat us with our bats if we're late again." That had been part of the tirade we received that day.

I had the spark of an absolutely brilliant thought, so I shared it. "What if instead of running to the pitch, we flew?" George froze, eyes bugging, before his jaw slowly dropped and he turned to me.

"Pure genius!"

We arrived at the pitch one minute before our presence had been demanded, strapping our protective gear onto our arms as Wood glared at us. Practice went great, George and I mostly hit a bludger back and forth at each other until the whole team joined for a scrimmage. The chasers were against Oliver, Harry flying around looking for the snitch, while we tried to smash each and every one of them. Nicely though, because they were our teammates.

George and I were trying a new strategy where we tried to keep the other team between us for the whole time, and it seemed to work well enough at practice, though it needed to be tried against another team in order for us to judge how effective it would really be. George was on the other side of Alicia, trying to get the bludger in the right position so he could smack it to me through the lovely chaser, when I got an idea.

I grinned at him and turned my gaze back to Oliver. I heard the smash of bludger against bat, and cocked my arm back so that I could receive the bludger at the right angle. Alicia yelped, but I hadn't heard an impact, so I swung. My timing was perfect, the bat connected with a solid smack that I felt all the way through my arm. Wood had told us to try the strategy of keeping the players we were targeting between the two of us, but he hadn't said anything about targeting the keeper.

I sent the bludger hurtling toward Oliver as he hovered in front of the left hoop, staring down Angelina since she had the quaffle. I flinched as I realized that he hadn't noticed the bludger coming his way, he was so intent upon the charging chaser. While we were not supposed to be pulling our hits, we were not supposed to be injuring our teammates, so I yelled to warn Oliver.

Smack. I was just too late to save him from a hit. However, my warning had allowed him to brace for it, and so he turned so his off side took the hit. The bludger had hit his left shoulder hard enough to knock him down several feet in the air. Luckily, our captain knew what he was doing. I flew over to check on him, that hit had been hard enough it could have knocked him off his broom.

"GonnakillFredgonnakillGeorge stupid beaters aimingatme." Uh oh. He only muttered like that when he was actually thinking about killing us.

"uh, alright there Wood?" I squeaked out as soon as I got close enough. He turned to me, face white and bloodless.

"Which one?" I knew what he was asking, but I knew that I had to keep both of us out of trouble. George flew in beside us, face pale, but unlike Wood, he wasn't in pain. But we would be later.

"Don't know what you're talking about Oliver, lets get you to the hospital wing." The rest of the team was already down on the ground, Harry with the snitch in hand and Alicia with the quaffle tucked under her arm. George flew off to battle the bludger back down while I flew with Wood down to the ground at a slow pace. His left arm was definitely hanging at an odd angle, he needed Pomfrey.

We should have just been late. It would have been less painful in the long run.

A/N: I am so so grateful for those of you who have read, followed, favorited, and especially those who have left a review (or multiple!) I apologize for my temporary hiatus, I can only blame being a graduating senior in college, working 3 different jobs, and having a mental health breakdown. I make no promises for the next month, but after that I promise to get back to a regular posting schedule.

Continuing to get alerts about new follows and favorites makes my day, and reviews even more so! I'm better now, so hopefully I can get back into writing and posting every week.