“Human beings are funny. They long to be with the person they love but refuse to admit openly. Some are afraid to show even the slightest sign of affection because of fear. Fear that their feelings may not be recognized, or even worst, returned. But one thing about human beings puzzles me the most is their conscious effort to be connected with the object of their affection even if it kills them slowly within.”

- Sigmund Freud

________________________________________

“Are you positive it’s safe?” she asked again, eyeing the present which was covered in wrapping paper of a nude and dancing Santa in her lap.

George’s face split into a thoroughly unreassuringly evil grin, while Fred feigned a look of hurt as he placed a hand to his heart. “Why, Hermione! Are you saying you don’t trust us? After everything we’ve been through?” And he pretended to wipe away a single and nonexistent tear.

Hermione fought down a smile. “Fine. I’ll open it, but if I die, I’ll kill you.”

Fred chortled and both twins slid into the spare seats on either side of her. This soothed her trepidation somewhat, knowing that whatever was inside was not bad enough to have the twins taking large steps away. She tore away at the paper to reveal an innocently while box, and slowly she lifted up the lid.

Hermione stared down at the harmless looking Santa hat and coffee mug, wondering for longer than she normally would have done if she had not accepted the glasses of wine Ginny offered her why the twins would give her such a present. But then it hit as she recalled their new invention.

“You gave me one of your embarrassment hat whatchamacallits?” she asked.

“We did, yeah,” said George, nodding. He leaned in and picked up the hat. “You can set it to the most recently humiliating moment, or the worst one.” Hermione watched him turn the little fluffy ball at the tip around. The word Recent appeared briefly in golden letters. “When you’ve done that, you find your victim and conveniently offer them a hot beverage.” He nodded over to Fred, who was holding the mug.

“You fill this with whatever you want,” he explained, “coffee or hot chocolate usually, and offer it to your victim, sliding on the hat as they go to drink it. They’ll get a blank look in their eye, which is your cue to sit back, watch the images in the mug, and enjoy the ride.”

Hermione frowned, mulling it over. “Isn’t this an invasion of peoples’ privacy?”

Fred shrugged. “We’ve worked to prevent any really, reallllly embarrassingly inappropriate moments from showing themselves, though…”

“We think we succeeded, but we can’t be sure. Which is where,” George grinned, wiggling in closer to Hermione, “you come in, Hermione, dear.”

She took in the identical devious glints in their eyes with apprehension. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Well, George and I have tested it, and we think it’s okay and safe to sell to the public, but we need an outsiders opinion to test it for us.”

Hermione’s head whipped around to look at him, and then back to the other. “Oh no. There is no way I’m trying out that hat.”

“Aw, c’mon Hermione!” whined George. “We’re pretty sure it’s fine.”

The words ‘pretty sure’ stood out the most to her.

“Why not just get Harry or Ron?” she asked, indicating her head to the Christmas tree, where both boys were stationed grinning and talking with Bill about the new broomsticks each got.

But Fred nodded his head towards Ginny, talking excitedly to Fleur and holding up a very expensive dress between them while Mrs. Weasley smiled and laughed along. “Ginny won’t let us anywhere near Harry. She says if we do anything funny to her groom, like turn his skin blue or something like last time, she’ll hex us into pieces.”

“And Mum’s not letting us try Ron either because, ‘He’s got enough to deal with without you two testing your silly knickknacks on him!’” said George, imitating his mother like many of her children seemed to love doing.

“What about Audrey or Rebecca?” she tried. “Or another brother?”

“Because Mum’ll do her nut in and we haven’t known Audrey or Rebecca as long as you.”

She huffed and worried her bottom lip for some time, the inevitable fact that she was at a dead end impossible to avoid. She knew there was no way out now. And she would have been more annoyed if she weren’t so grateful for Fred and George always being nice to her. They were the only Weasley’s who, right after it happened, never treated her differently or tiptoed around her like she was a bomb about to set off. And she had always appreciated that, so it seemed like the least she could do was to test out their hat.

Hermione sighed out in defeat, throwing her hands up into the air. “Okay! Yes! I’ll do it, then.”     

“Brilliant,” they said together, smiling in triumph as they reached behind Hermione to high five each other. Fred then sprung to his feet with the mug and headed for the kitchen.

She sighed again and slumped back into her seat. George, sensing her doubt, petted her on the knee comfortingly. “You’ll be fine. And we won’t tell anybody what we see in the cup. It’ll be our little secret.” She smiled thankfully before he added, “Of course, if it’s just mild, we will tease you about it every opportunity we get.”

She smiled. “Promise?”

“That we’ll make fun of you?”

“No, that it’ll be our little secret.”

He smiled now. “Yeah, I do. We won’t breathe a word of it to anyone. Right, Fred?” he asked, looking over as Fred approached and sat down again with the mug.

He hummed absently in agreement and reached for the hat, positioning it over her head without actually making any contact. “Right. Ready?”

She watched George take the mug from Fred and sit it on the coffee table in front of them so all could get a clear view. She looked up and found that no one else in the room was close enough to see anything; all were too busy talking and smiling with Christmas cheer. She looked back at the mug, Fred and George’s faces’, and then nodded with determination. “Ready.”

Fred let the hat slip effortlessly from his hold onto her head, and instantly Hermione felt all her senses dull. She still was aware of who she was and where she was and what she was doing, was very aware of the mug of hot chocolate which was going in and out of memories as it searched. Like a mini-pensive, she supposed it was. But then it stopped at a room. The flat, she realised faintly. The table and chairs fell from view as it went around a wall, the wall that guarded off the lounge room from the kitchen and dinning table, and there behind the wall was –

Vaguely from the back somewhere deep within her mind, something jolted into life, and for the first time since she’d put it on the thought of taking off the hat occurred to her. Because right now, in the depths of the mug, she saw herself and Draco only just pulling part; he was panting; she was gaping and their lips were swollen. It was probably too late, because Fred and George had seen, but somehow she felt the strong urge to pull away from this memory, and without the slightest idea how she managed it, she pulled out and fixed the mug on another memory where her skirt got suck in her underwear from just after visiting the loo. She’d been walking unknowingly around the office showing her back thigh for all until someone kindly informed her.

When the memory disintegrated, she felt herself really come back for the first time. She blinked twice. Three times. Four. Then removed the hat slowly. The horror of what the twins had seen fully smashed into her then. She had no idea that the most recent and embarrassing memory was when she’d kissed him. There had definitely been humiliation buried in all the horror of what they’d done, but it was weeks ago! There’d been embarrassing moments after that too…

But none quite as memorable as that one, the voice of logic whispered.       

She quickly looked up at Fred and George. They were looking at each other, their expressions unreadable. While they hadn’t actually seen proof of her and Draco snogging the daylights out of each other, the scene had most certainly implied it. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

Then suddenly George’s lips turned into a strained smile as he said, “Wow, Hermione, you really went that long with your skirt tucked up in your knickers?”

She gave a weak grin, but it was oddly strangled. “Yeah, I did.”

Silence fell.

“Look, I –” She broke off, her lips working silently for the words. “What you saw before the skirt incident was –”

But Fred was shaking his head. “What are you talking about?”

Her brows furrowed in confusion. “What?” 

He shrugged. “I didn’t see anything else. Did you, George?”

George looked intently at Hermione, and his eyes did not waver from hers as he said, “Not a thing, Fred.”

And like that, George’s words came back to her, we won’t tell anybody what we see in the cup. It’ll be our little secret. And she knew that both were honouring the promise made between them. So Hermione played along and nodded, plastering on a smile as they talked about the skirt incident, because she knew that it was Christmas, a time for celebration and to come together as one, setting aside all differences, and there were some things that should not be explored.

She returned to the flat at 11pm to find Draco sitting at the table, eyes tired and fully slumped into the chair with a book laying closed in front of him. But when he saw her, he quickly picked up the book as if to pretend he’d been reading it all along and sat up, glaring at her.

“Merlin Granger, you couldn’t have used the door, could you? Here I was, minding my own business and enjoying a peaceful evening, and then along you come, using Apparition as loudly as bloody possible. We do have a door.”

She looked at him for a long time, long enough for his cheeks to take on a faint shade of pink, and her suspicions were confirmed; that he had been, in fact, waiting up for her return. Ignoring that stupid feeling in her stomach, she snapped back at him, because that was familiar to her.

“I’m so sorry for interrupting your peace, Lord Malfoy.” She grabbed Crookshanks and made her way up the stairs to her room, only finding sleep when she heard his bedroom door shut moments later.

***

“Who was your first time with?”

Draco shot Granger a mischievous smirk before returning his attention to the mute soap opera. It had become routinely of them, to watch and make fun of the actors on daytime television during weekends when neither one had nothing better to do. He would never openly admit to her that he actually enjoyed it these times they spent together.

“I’m serious,” she said from her spot on the couch, where she lay sprawled out lazily, her arm under the pillow that was resting against the armrest. “Who was your first time with?”

Draco grinned at the impatience of her voice, glad he was facing away from her so she couldn’t see. “I don’t kiss and tell, Granger.”  

She leaned over and grabbed one of the fake flowers from the vase on the coffee table, absentmindedly toying with the petals. “If you don’t tell me,” she started casually, “I’m only going to assume it was with someone rather unflattering. Like, oh I don’t know, Millicent Bulstrode?”

He huffed a laugh. “Try again. Millicent was gay.”

He felt her eyes on him, but didn’t move his from the television. “Are you being honest?” she asked. “Because I heard rumours about that, but never knew if they were actually true.”  

“Yeah.” He thought about Millicent, and suddenly remembered something. “Didn’t she pull you into a headlock in second year? When the Lockheart bloke tried teaching us to duel?”

“My, Draco,” she teased. “I never knew you paid so much attention to me.”

“Tell me, Granger,” he went on, ignoring her as he sat up. “When she had you in that poison, did she try sneaking a hand anywhere –?”

“Draco! We were twelve years old! And just because she was a lesbian doesn’t mean she’s going to hit on every girl she comes across!” But she was laughing now, they both were. When the chucking and giggling died down, she sighed wistfully and began picking away at the flower again. “I wonder what dear old Millicent’s up to now?” 

The smile on Draco’s face died, and it took him a very long time to think about how to tell her, because he didn’t want to ruin the light mood of the blissfully normal conversation. He took so long to answer that the commercials on the television began and ended before he finally decided to just say it.

“Millicent was killed in the war.” 

And he was right. The feathery mood shattered to be replaced by an inevitable reminder that they were survivors of a war, and that not everybody got so lucky.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione mumbled at last. “I didn’t hear about that.”

He snorted, but the sound was not directed at her. “Yeah, the Ministry didn’t put much emphasis on the children of Death Eaters or Slytherins who died.”

There was a heavy silence, and just as Draco thought about reaching for the remote and turning off the mute, just so he wouldn’t have to endure it any longer, she spoke.

“It’s kind of funny, isn’t it?” He looked over to her questioningly, but she did not meet his eyes. “You’d think after the downfall of Voldemort we’d be more understanding.”

“What? Did you expect the world to suddenly be made of butterflies and rainbows?”

“No. I just…” She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know. I mean we went through a war that degraded people who were different, who discriminated Muggles and Muggle-borns, and then… then we turn around and do basically the same thing. It’s now the kids who’re Slytherins and pure-bloods that are looked at suspiciously. And… and…” She struggled for the words. “I guess I just thought that after all that, we’d have learned something, you know?”

He looked at her on that couch, flower held high above her as she twirled it around so that the colours blurred together, and it was one of those rare but not strange moments when he actually wondered if Granger was real. Not in the ‘are you an angel?’ sort of way, because that was far too cheesy for Draco, but more in the surreal kind of way. Because earlier she had generally sounded sorry and even sad that a girl who had bullied her throughout her school years was killed, and here she now was defending the very children whose parents would have gladly (and did) watched her wither, twitch, convulse and scream on the ground before them, who would have laughed at seeing her on her feet, begging for mercy; the very people who’d have killed and tortured her friends. She was just so bloody compassionate and pure. She saw things from both sides, and had a childlike view of the world; she’d seen and heard more terrible and gruesome things than anybody her age ever should, than anybody should in their lifetime for that matter, and it was apparent to him that she still had faith in humanity. Granger still thought the world to be beautiful. How she did, he would never understand it. Maybe it was because she’d also experienced some of the best things the world has to offer, things that some people never find, like true love and unbreakable friendships. Whatever the reason, Hermione still had a hope for humanity he had long since abandoned.

He didn’t know how long he’d stared off into space for, but the show had ended and Granger was talking again, seemingly determined to lift the mood again.

“So how about it?” She sat up and put the flower back, grinning. “Your first time was…?” 

“Not telling,” he said stubbornly.

“Hmm, okay, how about if I guess?”

He rolled his eyes, only to cover his amusement. “Fine.”

“Was it Blaise?”

Draco’s head turned so sharply at that that he heard a faint crack. “I beg your pardon?”

She shrugged. “It’s just that you guys are really very close for two males, so –”

He threw a pillow at her. She caught it and started laughing. “Okay, okay. So that’s a no?”

He glowered half-heartedly at her.

“Pansy?”

“Nope.”

“Tracy Davis?”

He scoffed. “No.”

“Hmm… someone in a lower or higher grade perhaps? I can’t think of many others in our year.”

“Why does it have to be a Slytherin?” he asked.

“Well, it’s not very likely going to be a Gryffindor, is it?”

“There are other Houses,” he drawled.

“Hufflepuff?”  

“Sweet Salazar, no!” he gasped, cringing at the very thought.

She frowned. “I honestly don’t see what’s wrong with Hufflepuff, they’re a perfectly fine House; they believe in fair play, which I think is a quality hard to come by, and they’re particularly good finders –”

“SO!” he interrupted loudly. “The last House left is Ravenclaw.”

“So it was Ravenclaw?” she asked eagerly.    

He smirked. “I never said that, I just said it was the last one we hadn’t mentioned.” She paused again to think, and Draco’s smirked widened. “Oh c’mon, Granger! You of all people should know!”

Hermione looked at him in confusion. “I should?”

“Yeah, well you nearly walked in on us, didn’t you? Think back. Wayy, wayyyy back.”  

And she did. Hermione had trouble recalling ever walking in on a couple doing the dirty, because it was surely something you would remember. The only time she’d ever came close to seeing –

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide. “Oh my god – that – that was you in that bush?”

He clapped. “Ten points to Gryffindor!”

She recalled back that night with more determination. She remembered how Viktor had taken her out the Entrance Hall doors and they’d walked along the path for a while; it being a good thing there’d been fairy lights and fountains to admire so as to take her mind off the boring conversation. But there had also been plenty of bushes lining the paths, and she remembered with starting clarity that the exact moment Viktor tried kissing her had been the exact moment three figures emerged from the bushes, two giggling as the other lead them away. And so it hadn’t been her imagination! She really had seen the familiar blonde hair as he ran off!  

“Is it becoming clearer for you?” he asked, noticing her expression of realisation.

“But – but there were two girls with you!” she said incredulously.

He actually had to think why this was a problem. “So? I like a bit of fun.”

“Who were they?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Some older girls from Beauxbatons.”  

“That is disgusting,” she said, wrinkling up her nose.

“No more disgusting than kissing Krum.” He shuddered dramatically, and Hermione threw the pillow back at him, smiling.

“So you were there the whole time,” she mused, sometime later.

“I was.”

“And interrupted my first kiss.”

“You interrupted my first time,” he returned.

She laughed quietly; still surprised it’d been him of all people. “I guess we just missed each other.”

He’d been about to turn his attention back to the television, but at her words he looked back and repeated what she’d said. I guess we just missed each other. He wondered if she heard the double meaning too. 

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Next chapter; there's not really much of a preview because some parts aren't set in stone, but basically they're at the New Years party. I just had to post this because I did say you all wouldn't be waiting another month. And is it conceited to say I love the last part of this chapter? Definitely one of my favourite scenes between them. 

Lol I can't believe I'm still getting comments about this. Obviously I know Fred died, I've already said I have him back because I couldn't stand to have George without him. Why do some of you not read oh my gosh haha.