Sinope's Fiction: Lucidity (And Other States of Mind)

Title: Lucidity (And Other States of Mind)
Author: Sinope at (no spam!) gmail dot com
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Hermione/Fred/George
Warning: Some mention of non-explicit consensual incest.
Summary: When life closes a door for Hermione, Fred and George burst open an unexpected window.
Author's notes: Thanks so much to Threerings and Blackpoplars for betaing
Disclaimer: This is an unofficial fan work. No profit was made; no ownership is implied.

Harry Potter, Two-Time Vanquisher of You-Know-Who and Savior of the Wizarding World, lived in a small flat a few miles from the Ministry of Magic. The door to his flat locked from the outside as well as the inside; two pleasant Squibs, trained as Muggle nurses, took care of the household chores and Harry's daily needs. Matilda was a better cook than Tess, but Tess knew how to calm Harry down when he started to whimper and curl into himself so tightly his nails left scars. The flat had been equipped with every sort of amusement - a television, a phonograph, a Muggle computer, a bookshelf full of the latest Quidditch periodicals - but aside from Matilda's fondness for records of Bach, the paraphernalia went unused.

Hermione visited Harry once a week on Sundays; she and ten others were the only people whom the Ministry permitted. (Seven of the remaining Weasleys were on the list.) She'd sit across from him in a hard yellow sofa and tell him about everything happening outside and try very hard not to cry, and some weeks, she even succeeded. Sometimes Harry would smile softly to himself, a secretive, venomous smile that reminded Hermione too much of Voldemort for her to watch it very long.

"Harry," she snapped at him once. "Harry! For goodness' sake, look at me when I talk to you." For a moment his eyes flickered to her, and she could pretend that he really was listening, that he was just his usual moody self. "I miss you, Harry," Hermione said, and Harry grinned and pursed his lips, exhaling a long whooshing stream of air as though trying to blow bubbles.

()

Ron had learned to avoid Hermione at the Ministry on Mondays, she eventually realized. She couldn't blame him; after Harry's good days, she'd be preoccupied with plans and what-ifs to return Harry to himself, and after the bad days, she'd snipe at everyone around her with the effort of not mourning for what he'd become. Besides, her department made her easy to avoid; unwilling to challenge Ron's dad for control of Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, she'd joined what she considered another woefully behind-the-times department: Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She'd lobbied for years to get the name changed to something less politically charged, like "Interspecies Relations," to no effect.

In fact, not much seemed effective these years, in the wake of the second devastating war in as many decades. The second War's survivors had used Voldemort's destruction as an excuse to withdraw into reactionary nostalgia. The Daily Prophet published front-page articles on virtuous housewives and their abundant families and gardens, while increased economic regulations pushed entrepreneurs and inventors overseas.

Really, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes was the only new establishment that Hermione remembered going up in ages. She hadn't visited the twins for months, after Ron had begun avoiding her, but every so often she'd see a sweet that looked dangerously like a Canary Cream, and she'd smile in recollection.

That was life: an empty flat in the mornings, fruitless paperwork and bureaucracy at the Ministry, dinner at a Muggle restaurant with the company of a book, and an empty flat at night. Hermione missed the intellectual stimulation of Hogwarts, of course, but she still read books, and she'd been working on a novel. (At least, she'd written the first chapter; between work and the daily chores involved in Being an Adult, she never seemed to have much spare time.)

But at least, Hermione always told herself as she turned restlessly in bed, nobody was dying.

()

Hermione knew about sex, of course, and she suspected that she knew more about it than the gossips who giggled at work about their latest one-night stand. As soon as she'd got to the age of curiosity about Those Things, she'd spent an evening or two in the library, reading anatomy books full of charts and diagrams and exquisitely dull descriptions. She'd spent more than one afternoon in Flourish and Blott's, as well, skimming through books with titles like How to Please Your Wizard: Unleashing the Erotic Goddess Within!, all the while furtively scanning the store in case she encountered anyone she knew. She knew all the standard and less-standard positions of intercourse, vaginal and anal, and she'd read the basic techniques of cunnilingus and fellatio. She could describe the position of the prostate and the proper use of prophylactic charms; she'd even begun writing a few paragraphs of a sex scene for her novel, aiming for just the right level of risque description.

Knowing everything about sex, Hermione tried to convince herself, made it entirely unnecessary to actually have it. She had ten fingers of her own, after all, not to mention a few rather enjoyable charms she'd learned from Ginny and Tonks. Besides, having sex required someone to have it with. Everyone she'd fancied was either unavailable (Bill), uninterested (Kingsley), incompatible (Luna), or decidedly gay (Lupin). Wizarding and Muggle bars were always full of desperate men, of course, but Hermione liked to think that she had slightly higher standards than that.

She missed Harry. She missed the way he'd sit next to her and laugh at her studiousness, brushing his fringe from his eyes in that way that made her glow. She missed hugging him with gratitude that he was still alive. They'd kissed, experimentally, just once, and Harry had smiled and said, "Well, at least we know it wouldn't work," and Hermione had smiled back brightly and nodded. She'd never told him that their kiss had been the nicest thirty seconds of her seventh year.

()

Fred and George cornered her on her way out of the Ministry one Friday. "We think -" Fred began,

"- and Ron thinks -" George continued,

"- that you should come to our party tomorrow night. Grand opening of our new Diagon Alley shop."

"Food and drink, fabulous door prizes!"

"And all the finest young witches and wizards of -"

"Wait," Hermione said sharply. "Ron's been talking about me?"

The twins looked at each other and spoke in unison. "Well . . ."

"That's what worries us," George said.

"He hasn't talked about you at all lately. Starts to tell stories about you, and then -"

"- he just stops. Quite unlike Ronniekins. So we think, either something's wrong with him -"

"- or something's wrong with you, and he doesn't like thinking about it."

The two raised their eyebrows. "Are we right?"

Hermione felt torn between exasperation and the smile that threatened to bubble up every time she spoke to the pair. "I'm fine. Really. And I -" can't honestly say I'm busy "- will think about going to the party. Thanks for inviting me; it's sweet of you."

"Hermione, come," Fred said, placing a surprisingly gentle hand on her shoulder.

"We mean it," said George, then added his hand to her other shoulder. "We're not blind. It'll do you good to get out."

"I don't -" Hermione began, but was interrupted by Fred waggling his finger.

"No excuses. If we don't see you tomorrow, then we'll come visit your flat, and we might just leave a few Christmas gifts behind."

George looked over and met Fred's eyes. "Still got those exploding dust bunnies?"

()

I knew I shouldn't have come, Hermione thought crossly, wandering away from the most recent knot of conversation. There seemed to be an unspoken rule that party chatter could only revolve around four topics: the state of the Quidditch World Cup, the attire of other partygoers, the sexual exploits of the latest Witch Weekly interviewees, and the scandalously funny pranks in the Weasley's newest line of products. An hour into the party, Hermione could swear she'd already heard someone confide rumours of spectacles that can see through clothing! half a dozen times. Meanwhile, she retreated to a chair in a corner of the flat and began mentally reviewing her tasks for Sunday. Even Ron had ignored her for most of the night, absorbed in conversation with a willowy American witch.

"Punch?" Hermione reached automatically for the proffered cup, then recognized its origin and gave Fred a wry smile. (How could anyone mix them up? She'd never hesitated in telling the two apart.)

"Thanks, but I've learned not to touch anything in this flat that I didn't get myself. And probably not even then."

Fred adopted a look of mock offense. "And here I am, trying to coax you with some harmless punch! Watch: perfectly safe." With a grin, he drank a gulp of the frothy pink mixture, smiled, and licked his lips. "It's a Saturday night; enjoy yourself, love."

Hermione took the cup and drank a tentative sip. Artificial strawberry, raspberry sherbet, and a faint flowery note of chamomile and jasmine. This is a very bad idea, she thought, and downed the glass. "Happy now?"

"Infinitely," Fred grinned, with a smile so smug that Hermione's senses went on instant alert.

She gave him her sternest glare. "All right, what was in there?"

He shrugged and gave her another wicked grin. "Like I said, perfectly safe. Now: dance with us?"

"Us?" Hermione asked, then caught George watching them from across the room. She became suddenly aware of the music, something electronic and Muggle that shimmered and thumped and pulsated, alternating between a relentless bass and an ethereal melody. She'd previously thought the music repetitive and annoying, but now the swirls of sound seemed to beckon her into their rhythm. "I . . . suppose I will."

The laughter of the other partygoers seemed dreamy and distant; all she could feel were Fred's hand in hers (each whorl of skin a unique pattern, oh, she could spend days tracing them) and the deep beat that seemed to penetrate every new movement. She felt George join her from behind, sandwiching her between the twins - when did they become so strong and warm? - as they guided her through a slow, swaying dance. Hermione could hardly feel herself moving, glad of the twins' bodies holding her upright, but each physical sensation seemed overwhelmingly wonderful, from the slide of her breasts in her satin brassiere to the slender bones of Fred and George's fingers, wrapping around her arms possessively. "This is wonderful," Hermione breathed, but words seemed rough and unimportant. All that mattered was music and movement and touch.

"Beautiful," she heard one of the twins murmur; so tall and so close, she wondered dreamily if other people thought they were just dancing with each other. She felt airy and empty, a translucent bubble tied to the floor by the thinnest of tethers; the warmth of their skin infused itself into her own, so delicious she thought she could taste the aroma of milky chamomile tea. Only when Hermione's feet gave way below her did she stumble to a stop, while someone whispered "Rest now, love," in her ear. Arms - so warm, so gentle - carried her to something soft and fluffy, and she sank down and closed her eyes and felt the room swirling in a delicious euphoria.

()

Hermione's eyes blinked open, and she sat up sharply. "I was drugged!" she snapped, as the last night's memories rushed back. Then she looked around; she was sitting, fully dressed, in the twins' bed - only one bed? some part of her brain wondered - with a slumbering Weasley on each side.

Their eyes blinked open sleepily. "I see you're awake," George said with slurred words, then winced. "Oi. Bloody hangover."

"Come back to sleep, love," Fred entreated from the other side of the bed. "We'll talk about this at a more reasonable hour?"

"I am not feeling particularly reasonable right now," Hermione said. "I can't believe that you two took advantage of me!" She felt her hair and gritted her teeth at the unmanageable tangle, digging for her hairclips in the pillow.

"We didn't take advantage of you," said Fred, and elbowed George's muttered "not that he didn't want to . . ."

"Love," Fred continued, "it was only a prank to give you a good time. All you did was dance and fall asleep. Upon our honor as Weasleys."

"That doesn't make it right."

"Too true," George said calmly. "That's for you to decide."

"I -" Hermione started, then stopped. She didn't know what to say, but her hair was off her face, and she could see her shoes and bag scattered near the door. "Ron put you up to this, didn't he?" she said, then slid out of bed, straightened her clothes, and gathered her things.

Hermione refused to look back out of stubbornness, but as she let herself out of their flat, she could hear one of the twins calling after her: "He's not the only one who's been watching you, love."

()

When Hermione dressed for work on Monday, she selected her most severe blouse and her most conservative robes, completing the outfit with sensible brown patent shoes. The clothing gave her courage to step into the halls of the Ministry, but it wasn't enough to silence the giggles and whispers she could swear she heard floating through the corridors. I am going to kill those boys, she thought fiercely, and snapped back at the department secretary's mild, "Good morning, Miss Granger."

She spent the morning cataloguing all the twins' horrid pranks, from their Ton-Tongue Toffee (what if the victim's windpipe clogged?) to their Aphrodesia's Love Potions (a socially acceptable form of mind control and emotional manipulation!), all the while typing furiously at the Ministry's latest treaty with the Welsh Mer-people. Only when she felt her stomach growling, then saw that the whole morning had passed, did she realize the peculiarity of that Monday: she'd hardly thought of Sunday's visit to Harry at all. Not that the visit had been typical, either; instead of awkwardly recounting the week's news stories, looking searchingly into Harry's eyes for any recognition, she'd spent the hour ranting to him about the twins' prank. "Thanks for listening, Harry," she'd told him at the end, and it hadn't hurt to give him a hug.

Hermione had almost forgotten the refreshing pleasure of self-righteous fury.

That didn't excuse their behavior, of course. Not in the slightest. Any sensible Muggle court would surely have indicted the pair; only the wizarding world's archaic ethical principles gave them the slightest shred of legal defense. Anyway, the legality of their behavior wasn't the point. The point was that Fred and George had violated her free will! They had drugged her and danced with her and slept with her, and . . .

All right, Hermione finally sighed to herself, I don't have much of a leg to stand on.

()

"Have you forgiven us yet?" Fred asked her on Friday after work, flashing Hermione a cheeky smile.

"Well, I -"

"Brilliant!" George exclaimed. "We knew you'd come 'round. Now, a little bird told us that you didn't have plans for tomorrow night -"

"And we have the solution!" the two said together.

"See, we thought about how you'd like to spend a perfect Saturday night -" Oh, bollocks, Hermione thought, they're going to invite me to a book signing, like every other man who's asked me out.

"- But then we realized," Fred continued, "that a book signing would be bloody boring. No offense, love. So instead -"

"- we put together a bottle of Ogden's and a game. Game's a secret until tomorrow night, of course."

"I don't like secrets," Hermione said, trying for a cross voice and only managing to sound bemused.

"Oh, but you'll like this one," George winked.

"Purely consensual."

"Money-back guarantee."

"Do come, Hermione?" Fred finished, begging her with those blue Weasley eyes that she'd tried so hard to learn to refuse.

Hermione sighed, throwing up her arms in exasperation. "If you drug me again, I promise that I will tell your mother."

()

Through the flat's open window, Hermione could smell a faint thread of honeysuckle, slipping ethereally between the chemical and human odors of London. The scent made her smile, while the room's edges had been pleasantly softened by a few firewhiskey shots. "I wonder how Muggles do it," she said to herself, thoughtfully. "I mean, all I have to do is snap -" she snapped her fingers "- and I could be sober. No fear of losing control. Poor Muggles. No wonder Mum and Dad worried so much about the Butterbeer Hogwarts served us." Then she took another sip of firewhiskey and giggled.

"Love, I think you're getting drunk," Fred said, placing his hand on Hermione's knee.

George met his twin's eyes. "Time to start the game?"

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed. "The game! Clarifi-rifi-um-clarificus!" Half the alcohol left her bloodstream in an enervating flash, leaving enough to stay enjoyably tipsy. "So, what is it?"

"Simple," Fred said, refilling their shotglasses. "You and we take turns asking questions -"

"- And you have to answer truthfully -"

"And whoever refuses to answer first loses."

"Oh, but that's just like -" Hermione clapped her hand over her mouth. The twins did not need to know about the "dare" half of Muggle Truth or Dare. "All right, why not." The worst that can happen is that I lose, and I don't lose.

"Brilliant," Fred said with a disquieting smile. "Your go first, Hermione."

"All right. Hm. I'll start easy: did Ron ask you to invite me to the party last week?"

Fred gave George a look of mock pain. "She thinks we lied to her. Ah, Hermione, you wound us to the heart."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "That's not an answer."

"Very well then," said George. "No, Ron did not ask us to invite you. Now, our first question: did you and our dear brother . . ."

". . . ever shag?"

Hermione felt herself flushing despite being unsurprised. She threw back a shot of Ogden's, then said calmly, "No. I think Ron thought your mum would kill us both if we tried. Besides, we weren't actually dating for very long. At any rate. What was in the drink you gave me?"

The twins' eyes met for a moment, as though passing a quiet message back and forth. Finally Fred spoke. "We really can't tell you the ingredients, love - proprietary, top-secret, all that. But it's from a new line of products we're testing for the shop."

"'Holiday in a Bottle,' we're calling them," George said. "A bit like Cheering Charms, but more relaxing - something for the overworked witch or wizard to sip at the end of a long day for a little pleasant escape. No long-term effects, of course."

"Which brings us to our next question. Purely in the interest of scientific curiosity -"

"- naturally -" they said together.

"- would you try more of the potion, if you knew what you were drinking?"

"Honestly? I might, if I were in a safe, controlled environment. Which the party, I might add, was not." Hermione smiled mischievously, the new round of firewhiskey threading through her senses. "Aren't you supposed to be asking me secrets about my kinky sex life, or something?"

"Why?" Fred grinned. "Got a secret sex kink that you'd like us to know about?"

Hermione felt herself blushing again, and (of course!) noticed at just that moment the way that George's arm, carelessly wrapped around Fred's shoulders, had been tracing idle circles on his brother's shirt. Before her brain could shut down her tongue, she blurted out, "So why do you sleep in the same bed?"

The twins shared another knowing glance. "Cheaper than buying two," George said lightly.

"Saves on heating."

"Opens up more space in the apartment."

"Harder to sneak up and kill us in our sleep."

"And it does make the sex more convenient," George concluded, grinning as Hermione choked on her firewhiskey. "That was the answer you wanted, wasn't it?"

"I - didn't - I - that's so -" Wrong? Disgusting? Hot? Oh, god. The images that flooded Hermione's brain were decidedly unhelpful in constructing a moral judgment. And maybe it's not such a taboo in the wizarding world. It's not like I ever asked Padma. . . oh, dear.

"Our question," George smoothly interrupted her thoughts. "If you could make sweet love to any one of our siblings, who would you choose?"

"Oh. Er -" Hermione thought through her choices. Ron? She'd been too upset at his pigheadedness lately to even contemplate snogging him. Bill? Tempting, but she'd feel awfully guilty about Fleur, whom she'd rather grown to respect. Charlie? The tough-and-manly type had never particularly attracted her. Which left - "Oh, I can't. Please, can't you ask another question?"

"Sorry, love, you knew the rules," Fred tisked. "Answer honestly, or lose the game."

"Oh, bloody . . . Ginny, all right?" Hermione gritted her teeth and reached to pour herself another shot.

Both of the twins laughed delightedly. "I knew it!" Fred crowed.

"You haven't got a chance, I'm afraid to say," George said seriously. "Poor girl's straight as a wand. Comes complaining to us all the time about the funny looks the other girls give her in the Cannons' locker room."

"All right, you can stop now," Hermione said, making a quiet hmph. "My turn again. How long have you two been - you know - with each other? Or are you just pulling my leg?"

"Well, if you must know, eight years -"

"- seven months -"

"- eighteen days -"

"- and two hours." Fred met George's eyes and snickered. "Or something thereabouts. You know how these things happen. One cold night at Hogwarts, two innocent boys decide to start experimenting . . ."

". . . and before you know it, it's nine years later and you're picking out curtains together. Our turn." While the two exchanged looks, Hermione braced herself for the worst. Finally, George said, "So. What would you like to do next Saturday?"

"Excuse me?" Hermione blinked. Then she thought about it. Her first temptation was a snide "catch up on the work that I couldn't finish tonight," but honestly, she could get everything done during the week if she managed her time well. She didn't dare answer the full truth (at least her brain had enough self-control for that), so she said, "I suppose another evening with you two would be nice."

Thankfully, Fred and George didn't say a word, but their eyes shone.

"Wait, are you two hitting on me?" Hermione said finally.

"Is that your question?" Fred replied.

She shrugged. "All right, why not."

"Then yeah, we probably are. Our question: if we were hitting on you . . ."

". . . What would you want to do about it?" George finished.

"I . . ." Hermione's mouth went dry, and the firewhiskey seemed to weigh far too heavily in her bloodstream. "Game's over. You win."

()

"Lupin asked after you in his last letter," Hermione said to Harry, looking outside past the gingham-checked curtains. The worst of the summer heat hadn't yet set in, and a breeze whipped around the branches of the apple tree, casting patches of light as green as Harry's eyes. "He says he's sorry that he'll have to miss your birthday, but that he'll be certain to send a present." Just like every year, her mind added bitterly. "I'm - I'm sorry he can't be here, Harry. I'm doing the best I can to change the Ministry ban, I really am, but all they do is keep bringing up Fenrir. Even Bill's given up, I think, although all he says is that he's happy in Avignon. Lupin doesn't say anything, either, but it's so unfair it hurts to think about it, and I just don't understand how everyone else can give up so easily."

Hermione ventured a look back at Harry. He was cradling a sugar cube in his hands, scowling and baring his teeth at it. "Oh, Harry," she said softly. "I wish you were here. You'd march to the Ministry and demand that they let Lupin and Bill and all the others back in. You'd fight for your friends with your last breath."

She turned away again and stood up, pacing the carpet. "Fred and George invited me over again last night. I don't know what to do about them. They act as if the war had never happened, as if jokes and pranks and flirting were all that mattered, and it's getting hard for me to blame them for doing it. They make people smile, and God knows we need that. But they . . . it's funny, I can't even talk about this with you, it's too embarrassing."

Hermione paused, thinking about how to phrase her words. "I used to think that sensible love started with friendship. I'd get to know someone, and we'd have things in common and learn to like and respect each other, and one day we'd fall in love and slowly bring our relationship to the next level, partners for life." I used to think that that would happen to us. "But lately I've been wondering if it has to be that way. Can you have the giddy part, the infatuation and the playfulness and the sex, without there being anything more? I mean, I know what everyone at work would say, but -"

A sharp crack startled her, and she turned around to see. Harry had hurled the sugar cube at the framed photograph on the wall, the one where Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat on the walls of Hogwarts in their third year, laughing and waving.

"Harry, I love you; you know that," Hermione said. "Would you forgive me if I let myself be loved, too?"

()

Dressing took ages, the next Saturday. I might have sex tonight, Hermione kept thinking; neither a hope nor a determination, the unspoken possibility simply floated in the air, irresistible and inevitable. From her knickers to her blouse, each article of clothing seemed to come attached to visions of how it might be removed. I mustn't look as though I've dressed specially for the occasion warred in her mind with - but I wouldn't want them to take off my shirt and see that! The final ensemble looked (she hoped) sexy on the inside and sensible on the outside; after all, she might've just fallen for another of the twins' pranks. Her stomach clenched and unclenched painfully, the way it hadn't done since her interview applying for a position in the Ministry. The unusual physical reaction worried her; what if I don't really want this at all?

Hermione finished getting dressed, then forced her arms to stop trembling. She had promised the twins to visit, so visit she would. She felt for her wand at her side, out of habit, then walked to her fireplace and grabbed a handful of Floo powder, pronouncing "Fred and George Weasley." Abruptly, as she stepped into the Floo, a horrible thought overcame her: what if they really did make X-ray spectacles, and they look at me and burst out laughing? She tried to step out, but the whirl of greenish light had already snatched her up, and the next thing she knew, she was stumbling off-balance into the twins' flat. "Hullo, Hermione," Fred smiled, offering his arm.

Then, looking at two pairs of blue eyes (one barely paler than the other), Hermione knew exactly what she wanted.

finis.