A/N This is in response to DevilsPrincess's challenge to write one way to get through to a Weasly. Thanks for the great idea! This is my first stab at Hermione Fred, so hope you all enjoy! Review please!

How to Get Through to a Weasly

A tall boy with slightly long red hair clutched a tiny black jar to his chest as he crept down the hallway. He hoped his manner appeared graceful and nonchalant to any of the non-existent passers by. In all actuality, Fred Weasly looked about as graceful and nonchalant as an axe murderer on a unicycle racing down a London sidewalk wearing a red clown's nose and a "Paris Football" tee shirt.

After creeping slowly past the bathroom and a guest room, Fred reached the
linen closest. Home to some of the greatest pranking materials to be had. People's sheets and towels. A 99 cotton gold mine. Giving his jar a bit of a shake, Fred slipped through the small door and into the closet. The lamp came on as soon as he entered. Leaving the door slightly ajar, Fred raked through the piles of sheets. Blue… no, white? No, she's not in that room either… Ah ha! Fred pulled out a neatly folded and creased pale pink sheet. Hermione's spare. She was in Ginny's room, which just made this all the better. Slowly and with the great precision that most would apply to potions or charms, Fred unfolded one square of the sheets. He raised the little black jar to the light and read it for the umpteenth time:

LAWN GNOME IN A JAR
Manufactured only by W.W.W.
Now, in the comfort of your own home, you to can grow your own
Lawn Gnomes. At about 10 centimeters, these gnomes are the most fun
you've had since we brought you Vampire in a Box. Just expose to sunlight,
and watch the fun begin!

Fred smiled with uncontrollable glee. A rather brilliant idea, if he did say so himself. And he did. Almost every day. One beam of light in the morning and Hermione's sheets would be crawling with little potato like lawn gnomes. He paused a moment, savoring the mental image of Hermione waking up to bed-guests of such a stature.

Hermione Granger turned off the water in the small shower. Reaching a hand blindly out of the curtain, she grabbed her fluffy blue bath towel and wrapped it around her dripping body. Slowly she stepped out of the shower, onto the round carpet to keep the water from getting everywhere. She raised the towel her to her hair, and rung it out like her mother's mop. Hermione smiled to herself. Hair like a mop. Wonderful.

She gave herself a quick towel dry before pulling on her underwear and clasping her bra. Hermione looked down at her pile of dirty clothes. It was late, and no one was up. She hated putting on her day's clothes after taking a shower. No one would see her if she just hurried down the hall, grabbed her spare sheets and ran to her room, right? She waved her wand and the clothes disappeared. Gently she set her wand on the sink. She'd come back for it. Then, wrapping her towel more tightly around her barely clothed self, Hermione snuck out of the bathroom and carefully towards the linen closet.

As Fred savored the prank in the quiet of the linen closet late at night, he heard something that disturbed his reverie. Footsteps. Footsteps in the hall. No one had business in his halls this late at night? What if it was Ginny? She'd never let him do this? Or… Fred gulped… his mother. She'd beat him blue if she ever found out he and George had kept some of that powder. She'd had her knickers in a twist since she found them testing it in the garden…

No, he mustn't be discovered. Fred sunk back into the closet, holding Hermione's sheets tightly to his chest. He crept under the hanging towels in the back of the closet to hide from view. The footsteps were drawing nearer. They were passing the closet- No! They weren't passing it at all. They had stopped. Through a crack in the towels, he saw the door to the closet open slightly. Hermione entered the closet. Wearing nothing but a towel.

Fred felt his heart stop for moment, before it began beating at 5 times its usual prank pulling pace. He stared at her through the hanging linens. Hermione in a towel… that's interesting. Fred shook himself out of it. What was Hermione doing sneaking about at this hour? Probably shacking up with Ron- No! Didn't need to see that. But Fred couldn't help but wonder. Little-Miss-Perfect Hermione? Sneaking around while he was trying to put instant lawn gnome powder on her sheets? HER SHEETS! She was getting them! And he had them! Oh what was he going to do?

Nothing. He would be very quiet. Hermione would take some other sheets and be on her way. As he spied on her through the linens, Hermione turned to pull the closet door shut. Fred felt himself shout, "Wait, Hermione, don't!"

As the door clicked shut, the lights went out, and Hermione screamed. Fred
pushed through the hanging towels to silence her, but Hermione lashed out with one hand and tried to open the door with the other. The doorknob rattled but didn't open. It was locked.
"Ahhh! Oh my God!" Hermione was screaming. Fred held one hand over her mouth, pushing her against the closed door without meaning to. "Stop yelling!" She stopped screaming, but bit him hard.
"George! What on earth-"
"Ow! Shhhh!" Fred held a finger to his lips, "Quiet! You want to wake up the dragon? And it's not George! It's Fred!"
"Fred, what in the bloody hell are you doing in here? And why did you lock the bloody door?"
Fred was speechless for a moment. Hermione had a mouth on her. "It doesn't matter what I was doing. I didn't lock the door. It locked on its own when you closed it!"
"What are you talking about!"
"When mum found out George and I were in here all the time messing with people's sheets, she put a spell to lock it. Only, it's so old, sometimes it just randomly locks from the outside."
"I bet that's what you were doing in here! Messing around with people's towels!"
"What? You're the one sneaking about and-"
"Are those my sheets!" Hermione shrieked when she saw what was in his arms. At that moment the light clicked off again. Fred fumbled against the wall looking for the switch. He clicked it on, and looked back at Hermione, only to receive a hard slap across his face. He fell back onto the floor.
"You bloody little-"
"What were you doing with my sheets you perv? I swear if there's anything wrong with them-"
"Calm down, I haven't down anything with your precious sheets! What'd you have to slap me for?"
"Well, seeing as its you, it's only reasonable to assume you had something less than innocent in mind!" Hermione glared at him.
Fred straightened up to his full height. Quite a bit taller than the girl in front of him.
"You're one to talk about less than innocent, waltzing about in that towel there!" The words came out before he registered what he was really saying. Hermione gasped and looked down at the towel being held loosely with one hand. With a small squeak she wrapped them more tightly around herself. Her face turned bright red.
"And just how long before you were planning on telling me about my state of dress?" She was shouting again.
"I figured you'd know!" Fred shouted back, "And you call that dressed? What on earth have you been doing and why are you wearing a towel around my house in the middle of the bloody night?"
"It's none of your business!"
"It is so! I have the right to know which of my brother's you've been shagging!"
Before the words even made it out of his mouth, Fred felt Hermione's hand across his cheek again.
"How dare you! I have done nothing of the sort!"
"Of course you haven't. You just fancied a cuppa in your towel at 12 am and thought you'd nip downstairs to-"
Her hand swung again but Fred caught it. She struggled to free herself without letting of her towel, but his grip was too strong.
"Slap me again and I'll do it back! I'm going to have a bloody welt because of you!"
"You deserve it!" Hermione tried to twist herself out of his hold. Her wet hair was falling in her face and sending beads of water down her neck and shoulders.

Fred finally stopped being so angry with her for ruining his plan and looked at the girl who was locked in this closet with him. He looked at her face. She was really very pretty, with her dark brown eyes and full pink lips. Her wet hair hid the bushiness in light waves. She even had some freckles under her eyes he'd never noticed before. His eyes drifted steadily downward. He couldn't ignore it any more- she had a great figure. Curved in all the right places, perfectly matched to her height, which couldn't have been more than 5'5. Her skin was smooth and creamy looking, even in the dim light of the closet, with the occasional freckle. And goodness knows he could see enough of it with that towel on. If he wasn't so responsible, he might just have to…

Fred was staring and Hermione knew it. She fidgeted under his scrutiny and
blushed without meaning to.
"What are you looking at?" she said coldly. Fred blinked and brought his eyes forcefully back to her face.
"Look, I'll let you go if you don't slap me. We're both just a little stressed. I give you two hands to hold that towel, and you tell me what the hell you are doing in it at midnight?"
"Deal." Hermione's glare softened a bit, and Fred smiled. He released her hand. Hermione instantly pulled the small blue towel higher and leaned against the locked door.

"So what are you doing in nothing but a towel if not seducing my ever
gullible brothers?"
Hermione actually laughed, "Firstly, I have got a bra and knickers on too. And secondly, it should be quite obvious. I was taking a shower!"
"At midnight?"
"I shower late, alright? It's just a habit."
Fred smirked. Now he saw the bra straps. They were white, no big surprise there. He felt a bit of curiosity to see the rest of that bra.
"Fair enough. But honestly, shower in the day time would you?"
"Why, mad I ruined your plans?"
"Who says I have plans?"
"You always have plans, Fred."
"This is true. But I don't usually have to allow for half dressed girls to barge in on me while I'm putting them into action."
Hermione blushed again, "Well, I wouldn't have closed the door if I'd known it was going to lock!"
"I tried to tell you, but you just screamed like a banshee and bit me. Now we're stuck in here."
"But surely all that noise must've woken someone up!"
"Nope. Silencing charm."
Hermione sighed, "You're not serious!"
"For once, I am quite serious. But don't ask me why. Towels don't exactly make a lot of noise."
"So why did you try to keep me from screaming?"
"Cause you scream loud and it hurts my ears!"
Hermione laughed softly, "Oh, sorry about that. And for biting you…"
"And… anything else?"
"No. I'm not sorry for slapping you. You deserved it."
"Hell if I did! That bloody hurt!"
Hermione laughed out loud, "Good. But we're still stuck."
"Yes. Unless you have your wand. And I doubt it." Fred gave her an exaggerated screening. Hermione's cheeks flushed and she glared at him.
"Oh stop that."

"Well, I could be wrong," Fred smirked, raising his eyebrows. "You might have it stashed somewhere…"

Before she could stop him, or he could stop himself, he reached over and pulled the hem of her towel playfully. In a panicked effort to keep her upper thighs hidden, Hermione attempted to stop him by pulling the towel out of his grasp. Unfortunately for her, he'd been holding it a bit tighter than she'd expected. She lost balanced and fell on Fred, knocking him over. The light flickered out again. They both tumbled to the floor.

Fred didn't really want to open his eyes. He knew another slap was coming, he just knew it. Honestly, he had been flirting with Hermione Granger. It was his own fault this time. Very slowly, he opened one eye. It was dark, but he could feel a lot of wet hair in his face.

"Well, that was one of your stupider ideas," he smirked to the darkness. He felt Hermione balance her hands on his shoulders and push herself off him.

"My ideas! Whose idea was it to pull my bloody towel off anyway?" she shouted. At that moment, the lights flickered back on. Fred then came to the shocking realization that Hermione was on top of him, straddling his waste with both her hands on his shoulders, her knickers and quite a bit of her stomach exposed (not that bra though…). Not the most platonic looking position.

"Ack! Get off me you creep!" Hermione shrieked.

"Off you? You're the one sitting on me! You get off!" Fred rolled to one side and Hermione rolled to the other. They both quickly stood up and Hermione frantically tried to recover herself with her towel.

"What on earth did you do that for?" she shouted when she had regained a semblance of composure.

"Do what!"

"Try and take off my towel, you bastard!"

"I didn't try to steal the effing towel," Fred sighed, but he couldn't resist, "I was just having a bit of a look. You see, I'm a legs kinda guy and-"

Smack right across the face. Not even the courtesy to switch cheeks. But Fred was ready. He slapped her right back. And not on the face…

Hermione gave a small shriek and held one hand to her butt. Fred was quite shocked himself. He had just slapped Hermione Granger's-

"What in the bloody hell do you think your doing!"

"I told you, hit me again and I'll hit you back. Now can we stop this? I didn't mean to pull your towel off. I was just being a prick."

"Yes, definitely a prick. Sometimes your jokes aren't funny, Fred."

"I thought it was."

"Now that I've hit you for it, still think so?"

"Yes actually. Nice legs by the way."

Hermione had steam coming out of her ears. Fred couldn't stop himself,

"Though I could've told you that before. That towel doesn't exactly do much to cover them."

"Oh enough of this!" Hermione yelled, "Please try to be decent if you don't want to get hit!"

It took everything in him to keep from saying, "I'm fine with that, but I'm keeping my promise to return all favors." Instead, Fred sighed and nodded.

"Alright, I'll be a good boy."

Hermione snorted, "Now what were we talking about before… all that happened?"

"Your lack of a wand."

"And I don't suppose you have yours?"
"Of course I do. And I've just been sitting in here with you slapping me the whole time for kicks." Fred rolled his eyes.
"Well you never know. Weaslys can be very thick sometimes!" Hermione shot back.
"That's not true!"
"It is! It's impossible to get through to a Weasly!"
"It isn't! Just because you've been waiting on Ron all this time, don't take it out on the rest of us!"
Hermione laughed, "Is that what everyone thinks? Ron and I are just friends!"
Fred snorted, but felt an odd and unexpected feeling of relief.
"Sure you are. He's dafter than all of us!"
"You shouldn't say that about your brother!"
"But it's true."
Hermione surveyed Fred amused, "Oh, I don't know, you can be very thick sometimes."
"That's not true! There are plenty of ways to get through to me!"
"Oh really? Name one!"
"Well, there's…" Fred trailed off. Honestly, right then he couldn't think of one. If he was so damned perceptive, how come he'd never noticed how gorgeous Hermione was before? Hermione was about to comment on his silence, when footsteps sounded in the hall.

Fred sighed in relief. Freedom was so close. He didn't like to think what he might end up doing if he stayed in that closet with Hermione too much longer. Hermione gasped at the sound of footsteps, then reached up and turned off the light. Fred was shocked.
"What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing!" he shouted, moving blindly towards the light. Hermione clasped a hand over his mouth, and pushed him back bodily so she wouldn't drop her towel.
"Shh!"
"Silencing charm!"
"Oh right," Hermione said quietly. She removed her hand but stayed standing against Fred.
"Mione, if we turn on the light they might see it and let us out!"
She blushed a bit at the nickname, "But if they see me with… well, not dressed in here with you! What does that look like?"
"Oh come on, Mione, they wont think that!" Fred laughed.
"What did you think!" she whispered loudly back to him. Fred had to admit, she had him there.
"Well how do you propose we get out of here then?"
"I don't know, later! Will it unlock on its own?"
"I might be able to pick it in the morning… I think I have a pin around here somewhere…"
"Well, can we please wait? I don't want any one to think…well, you know…"
Hermione looked up at Fred desperately. He smirked.
"Why, Mione, don't like me?"
"It's not that! I do… well, I mean I like you as a friend, but honestly can't we just wait?"
Fred smiled.
"Sure we can. I'll get it in the morning."
Hermione gave a small squeak of happiness and kissed Fred on the cheek. He grinned in spite of himself and wrapped his arms around her waist. Holding her towel up tightly, Hermione stared up at him.
"But do you really not like me?" Fred asked jokingly.
Hermione giggled, then laughed out loud. She held one hand to cover her mouth as she laughed. And as he stood holding her, watching her laugh, something in her just struck Fred as perfect. He took her hand off her mouth and kissed her square on the lips.

Hermione's eyes were wide with shock. She'd never been kissed like that before. Before she knew what she was doing, she was responding. She let him open her mouth with his tongue. Her arms abandoned her towel and entwined around Fred's neck and in his hair. Her eyes slowly closed. As soon as Fred felt her hands around his neck, he pulled his body away from hers for a second and let the towel fall to the
ground.

He took his mouth off hers and said,
"That's how you get through to a Weasly."
Hermione giggled, "No beating around the bush for you?"
"No, things need to be straight forward for me."
"Well that makes you thick," Hermione said as she began to lean closer to him. Fred shrugged. "It's a fool's world," he said before kissing her again.

Fred awoke to a ray of sun shining through the skylight of the linen closet. "Thank Merlin I didn't open that jar," he smiled. He tightened his hold on Hermione, who was sleeping on his chest. He knew his shirt had come off, but the other clothes had stayed on, thank God. The dragon would've killed him. Not like Hermione'd had many clothes to begin with, but just the same.

Fred laid his head against the hard wood floor. Soon they'd have to get up and pick that lock. But in the mean time, the floor wasn't too bad. Perhaps they could wait a bit. Do more snogging, you never know. She didn't look that she'd be any good at it, but damn…

Eyes pleasantly closed, Fred remembered all of last night's bizarre happenings. He hadn't seen that coming, truth be told. What a pleasant surprise. Suddenly, Fred heard the door swing open to an unmistakable George saying, "Where's Fred and what has he done with our Instant Lawn Gnome Powder-?"
Fred's eyes shot open, and he felt Hermione's head fly off his chest. They both looked up into the shocked face of George.
"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON HERE!" George shouted, staggering back a
few paces, "Argh, my virgin eyes!" With that, he sprinted off down the hall shouting, "IT BURNS!" at the top of his lungs.

Hermione turned her head to look down at Fred. She wasn't smiling.
"Instant what!"

A/N well it makes me laugh any ways. Hope everyone likes it! Hope someone reads it at the very least! Thanks to my beta for editing it! YOU ROCK DK!