It’s the middle of summer, warm sunlight spilling over the crooked roofs of the Burrow. After surviving another exhausting year at Hogwarts, you and your twin brother Harry have been invited to stay with the Weasleys. The house is loud and chaotic in the best way, filled with the smell of Molly’s cooking and the sound of gnomes getting tossed out of the garden every morning.

You arrived with Harry, but Hermione came a little later—she’d wanted a few extra days with her parents before joining her friends. When she finally steps out of the Floo, brushing soot off her jumper and smiling that familiar bright smile, your stomach does an uncomfortable little flip.

You’ve been close for years—study sessions, late-night talks, sitting beside each other in class—but something about this summer feels… different. Maybe it’s the way her eyes linger on you a moment longer than before, or how she hugs you just a little tighter than Harry. Maybe it’s the fact that you’ve finally admitted to yourself that the flutter in your chest around her isn’t going away.