The Murder In St. John

9. Our Future

But it would be over. The lawyers would fix everything and Hermione could finally live happily ever after.

George woke before the birds, and the sun, even before the waves crashed against the shore, and jumped out of bed. He had gotten home late last night, far after Fred had turned out his porch light and so he hadn't the chance to go over and tell him the news.

In this small town, if the porch light was off that meant one didn't knock, so George forced himself to wait. 

He had dropped Hermione off to Coach waiting by the front door and kissed her up against the wall beneath the porch light as he meant to a few weeks ago. It was just as magical as he thought it would be, and he had sent her to bed with a whispered good night. Not first without Hermione tilting up on her toes, and stealing one more kiss. 

The same kiss that still felt fresh on his lips as he threw aside his comforter and pushed out of bed.

This morning he didn't bother with changing, combing his hair, or even grabbing shoes. He padded across his pale brown floorboards, right out his front door across his small lawn, and right up Fred's front door steps.

Because if George was up-that meant Fred had already been awake for at least an hour as the man hardly slept. To wired and jumpy-his fingers begging to fix something, anything. Throughout childhood, it had been trouble. Through adulthood, it had been hobbies.

So George knocked, just once to warn the couple before he was pushing inside because a person never truly had to lock their doors in St. John's. Not really anyway. 

He came across Angelina in the kitchen, who he knew without a doubt already knew exactly what he was going to say upon spotting him, and pointed down the hall to Fred's tinkering room.

George flashed her a smile as she lifted a steaming cup of tea to her lips, and she only waved him off as he sped away. Rubbing a hand over her stomach as she stood in only her robe and night dress. A thousand memories of teenhood flashed in his mind. Angelina sneaking out of their farmhouse in Fred's clothes, laughing as George flashed a flashlight across the lawn for her. Dipping into the woods to the path that would take her to her house nestled toward the oceanfront. 

She had always been there, in a similar way that Hermione had always been. Only now, Hermione was reachable. She was his.

He knocked once on Fred's hobby-room door but had thrown it open before the sound even faded.

Fred looked up-thin glasses sliding off his nose, and his fingers dropped the tiny pieces of a model airplane he was building. He sat up straight, the headlamp he was wearing on his head falling down to his chest and he opened his eyes wide.

But George wanted to say it, so he spoke first. He deserved that much.

"I kissed Hermione."

"And?"

"She kissed me back."

Fred stood up slowly, back cracking with his slouched-over posture and he approached George slowly as if in the presence of a feral, wild animal.

"And, you're dating now, right?" Fred asked.

"As of last night, I'd say so, yes." George nodded-rising up on his toes in excitement.

"And she knows you are?" Fred pressed.

"Came out of her very mouth," George answered, hands working into his unruly hair.