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“A pretty girl like yourself shouldn’t be crying when there is a ball happening,” a joyful voice spoke above her, Hermione peered up at the boy before her through her waterfall of tears to see Fred Weasley standing above her.
“Shouldn’t you be with Angelina,” she responded dryly, wiping her tears with the back of her hand, Hermione grimaced at the smudged makeup left behind, she could only imagine how ugly she looked, certainly not pretty.
“She’s snogging George, only asked her to the ball because George was too chicken,” Fred shrugged his shoulders and extended one of his large hands to her.
“What do you want,” she asked him tiredly.
“I want to dance with the prettiest girl at the ball,” he told her with a charming smile.
“I don’t feel pretty,” she muttered taking his hand.
“You Mione are pretty inside and out, when you arrived tonight on the arm of Krum every boy in the hall wished you were their date and every girl wanted to be you,” he told her quietly.
“Even you,” she asked him disbelievingly.
“Even me, though I wanted to be with you before tonight; I don’t need you dressed up to know you are the perfect woman,” he informed her, wrapping his arms around her. Together they danced at the base of the grand staircase in the Entrance Hall of Hogwarts, in their own little bubble, they swayed slowly; to their own beat, much calmer than the one that the Weird Sisters played behind the large oak doors a short distance away from them. Hermione knew they probably looked a sight; the handsome red headed prankster holding her so gently in his arms; her face covered in her ruined makeup, but she didn’t care, she felt safe and loved in his arms.
“Thank you for this,” she whispered staring up into his aqua blue eyes.
“Thank you, I wish I’d had the courage to ask you to the ball,” he told her quietly, his eyes full of so much emotion it made her heart melt and her knees week.
“So, do I,” she whispered, Fred smiled down at her before gently claiming her lips in a sweet kiss, her first kiss, to Hermione it was perfect. That was the first time Hermione should have told Fred she loved him.
Hermione was sat in the common room reading in front of the fire when Fred stumbled into the room, his complexion was pale and he held his right hand close to his chest, a blooded handkerchief wrapped tightly around it.
“Oh, Fred I wish you wouldn’t antagonize her, isn’t Dumbledore’s Army enough,” she asked him, taking his uninjured hand, and leading him over to where she had been seated.
“You know me Mione, I love a bit of rebellion,” he told her, hissing in pain when she unwrapped his hand and submerged it in a bowl of murtlap she already had prepared on the table.
“You never used to get caught this much Fred,” she told him staring down at his scared hand in distress, Fred had sentence upon sentence in his own handwriting carved into his flesh; the latest sentence; ‘I must not set off Dung bombs sat split open above multiple raised red lines. Many of the previous words he’s wrote were indistinguishable.
“I’ve been taking detentions for younger students,” he admitted proudly.
“Why,” she asked dumbly.
“I’m an older brother, I can’t stomach the thought of little kids having to write with a blood quill, George and I have been taking the blame for pranks some of the first year and second year students have done, if Umbridge thinks it’s us she isn’t going to search for those who really did it,” he told her shrugging his shoulders like it was nothing at all.
“You and George are wonderful older brothers and fantastic men; I wish you didn’t get hurt but I am proud of you for what you are doing.
“How proud,” Fred questioned with a smirk. Hermione smiled coyly back to him, climbing onto his lap.
“So very, very proud,” she told him between heated kisses. That night Hermione watched Fred become undone for the first time, moaning her name on the worn red sofa in front of the roaring fire in the Gryffindor common room.
That was the second time she should have told Fred Weasley, her boyfriend and defender of children that she loved him. Instead, she lay in his arms her ear against his naked chest, listening to his pounding heart too nervous to voice her feelings, too nervous that she might ruin the moment. What if Fred didn’t feel the same, she thought to herself before her eyes fluttered shut.
“Hermione, thank merlin you are alright,” Fred spoke pulling her into his arms. Hermione felt numb, Dumbledore was dead, and the weight of the world was on her, Harry, and Ron’s shoulders.
“When we heard that Death Eaters had gotten into the castle, I was so worried about you” he spoke quietly his head resting on top of her own while his arms cocooned body.
“I’m alive, how’s Bill,” she asked him.
“Bill will be okay, Remus says he might have a few wolfy characteristics but he won’t be a werewolf,” he informed her quietly.
“I’m glad he’s okay,” she whispered.
“Me too,” he told her.
“Dumbledore left us a job, Harry, Ron and I have to leave,” she told him.
“A job I can’t help with,” he asked.
“It has to be the three of us,” she told him, bursting into tears, Fred held her as she sobbed, when her legs gave out, he carried her up to the common room and together they lay on their couch, Fred rubbing soothing circles on her back.
“I love you Hermione, we will get through this war and be together again,” his voice was so confident, and Hermione sobbed harder. How could she believe him when Dumbledore the most powerful wizard was dead, if he could die, they all could. There was high probability one of them or both of them would die in the coming months and she couldn’t bring herself to tell him how much she loved him, if she did, she wouldn’t have the strength to leave him, to obliviate her parents, to go on the hunt for Horcruxes. Hermione waited for Fred to fall asleep, kissed his cheek and left the castle, she had a war to prepare for. That night in the Gryffindor Common Room was the third time Hermione should have told Fred she loved him.
The night before Bill and Fleur’s wedding Hermione snuck into the flat above Fred and George’s joke shop. She spent the night in Fred’s bed, Fred worshiping her body, making love to her over and over again; it was sweet, it was slow, and both cried knowing that it was goodbye. Fred told her repeatedly how much he loved her and kissed away her tears; reassuring her that though she hadn’t said it in return he knew that she loved him too.
In the dark of night as she laid in his arms, their hands clutched together Fred spoke of the future they’d have together: “When this war is over Mione and we’ve saved the world, I’m going to marry you, you’ll be my beautiful wife, career driven and ready to take on the world, I’ll be your handsome prankster running a joking empire with George. All our loved ones will survive with us and we will restore your parent’s memories. We will get married in the Hogwarts library because it’s your favourite place in the world. We will have at least two children because you always wanted a sibling and a massive house with lots of room for your books,” Fred’s voice was so quiet as he whispered the future he foreshadowed, and Hermione hoped with all her heart that it would come to pass.
“It sounds perfect,” she told him honestly.
“It will be and until we get it, I have something for you, Accio,” in the dark Fred reached for her left hand, carefully he slid a cold metal ring onto her ring finger, Hermione gasped at the contact and Fred kissed her.
“We will survive this and we will get married, until then while you are doing whatever Dumbledore planned for you to do I want you to wear this engagement ring and when you feel low you can look at it and fight for our future,” Hermione unable to form words; showed Fred just how much she loved him as she worshiped his body; they didn’t stop making love until long after the sun had risen and they had to get back to the Burrow for his eldest brother’s wedding.
The Wedding was perfect, and Hermione could see her and Fred one day standing in the Burrow’s meadow getting married with all their loved one’s present. Her and Fred spent the evening dancing in each other’s arms as though they were the only people in the world. When her feet began to hurt Fred left her next to Harry who was sitting at one of the small round tables in the marquee promising to be back in a minute with a drink for them both. Hermione followed him with her eyes as he dodged people in his quest to get to the bar on the far side of the vast dancefloor. She wore a silly smile on her face as she stared at him across the room, her fingers playing with the ring on her finger.
“You could stay with Fred,” Harry told her, giving her an out if she wanted it, how she wished she could take it.
“Don’t be silly you and Ron wouldn’t last a day without me,” she told him, leaning her head onto his shoulder.
A blinding silver lynx Patronus raced into the room; Kingsley Shacklebolt’s voice emitting from it: “The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming." Hermine’s happy bubble popped, and horror filled her to her bones, she met Fred’s eyes across the tent, wedding guests were screaming, apparateing away before the Death Eater’s arrived. Hermione saw Fred mouth the words; “I love you,” the sound lost in the chaos surrounding them. Before she could respond a hand clamped down on her own and she felt the pull of Apparition.
“I love you,” she whispered to the night air of the cold forest Ron had apparated her and Harry too. Falling to her knees she cried, she felt Harry pick her up and cried into his chest.
“I never got to tell him I loved him,” she told her friends sadly.
“Fred knows you love him,” Ron told her quietly as he used his wand to set up the tent, she kept in her small, beaded bag.
“Come on Hermione let’s go inside, we can camp here tonight and go to Grimmauld Place tomorrow,” Harry spoke so quietly as he carried her into the tent, settling her down onto one of the small camp beds. That night Hermione played with the small silver diamond ring on her ring finger, hoping Fed knew how much she loved him. The fourth time she should have told Fred she loved him would have been at anytime during the previous day they’d spent together but she hadn’t, and the war was upon them. She desperately hoped they’d both come out the other side unscratched.
“WHERE IS SHE,” a beautifully familiar voice screamed, followed by muted mutters she couldn’t understand. Shortly later the door to the blue room she was in was thrown open; a deranged redheaded man staring down at her with worry and love.
“Fred-die,” she stuttered out between chattering teeth caused by the painful tremors in her jaw an after effect of the cruciatus curse Bellatrix had cast upon her.
“Shush, don’t talk,” he told her, climbing onto the bed beside her, carefully as though she was made of porcelain, he pulled her broken body into his arms.
“I did-n’t Bre-ak, she le-ar-nt no-th-ing,” though broken her words were proud, Fred smiled at her, tears falling from his eyes.
“I’d expect nothing less from my brave lioness,” Fred told her, lightly kissing her lips, so reminiscent to their first kiss they shared so long ago at the Yule Ball.
Her body hurt so much, and the potions Fleur had given her were beginning to take effect, her eyes were beginning to feel so heavy, she needed Fred to know how she felt but her mouth wouldn’t form the words, just like her eyes her tongue was heavy. Darkness filled her vision before she could tell him how much she loved him.
That night Hermione slept in her fiancé’s arms. When Hermione awoke late the next afternoon Fred was gone, Bill told her that he and George had been rescuing Muggleborn students and sending them to safety abroad, he’d have to leave to help the next group get safely across the channel to Madam Maxime. As much as she wished that he had stayed at her side; Fred wouldn’t be Fred if he weren’t helping to save people. She only wished she’d been able to tell him how much she loved him before he’d left. That night in Shell Cottage would be the fifth and last time Hermione didn’t tell Fred she loved him when she should have.
Before they entered the Room of Requirement the castle had been mostly quiet as the professors arranged the evacuation of the younger students from the school. When they exited the room, panting with exhaustion and coved in ash from Crabbe’s Fiendfyre the silent castle was no more. Booming bangs rocketed the school; she could hear people screaming, cackling, and crying in the distance. Hermione could hear people shouting spells as well as sounds that were unmistakably not human such as the howls of werewolves.
The hallway outside of the Room of Requirement had not escaped the battle going on; it was covered in dust; a large chunk of wall missing allowed the cold night air to touch her skin soothing the heat-burns left there moments before. Peering out through the hole into the grounds of Hogwarts; Hermione could see the battle raging below. In the distance the quidditch pitch was an inferno of flames; the bridge Hermione had crossed hundreds of times to get to Hogsmeade was no more. She could see groups of students, teachers and Order members firing spells at masked Death Eaters, Giants, Acromantula’s and other beasts that Voldemort had persuaded to join his cause. She twisted her engagement ring nervously, how could they possibly succeed tonight.
“Hermione, we have to move,” Harry told her roughly grabbing her hand and pulling her down the war-torn corridor; Ron at their heels, none of them giving Draco Malfoy and Gregory Goyle a thought as the Slytherins cried for their dead Friend.
Descending a staircase into the next corridor Hermione felt herself fill with butterflies; Fred her beautiful Fred was alive and fighting alongside Percy in front of them, Hermione let go of Harry’s hand and rushed forward towards them; the pair were battling four Death Eaters and though they appeared to be holding their own, she wanted to help.
“Diffindo,” she shouted aiming her wand at one of the masked men who dared to aim his wand at her man. Watching the spell slice through his arm like a hot knife through a block of butter was strangely satisfying but not as satisfying as hearing him scream.
“Hello love, fancy seeing you here,” Fred called to her aiming a jinx at one of the other men.
“Concentrate Fred,” she told him with a sweet smile as she stunned the man whose arm she had severed from his body, blood squirting out of his open wound.
Percy sent a spell at one of the masked men and he stumbled, his mask falling from his face to reveal the minister for magic.
"Hello, Minister!" Percy shouted at the man, he raised his wand at Pius Thicknesse, casting a violet jinx that Hermione didn’t recognise. The jinx appeared to cause the man significant pain as he clawed at his own robes gasping for breath.
"Did I mention I'm resigning?" Percy called and Hermione snorted, had perfect prefect Percy seriously just made a joke in the middle of the battle.
Clearly, he had, and Hermione wasn’t going insane; "You're joking, Perce!" Fred shouted at her side his voice full of disbelief as the Death Eater he was battling collapsed under the weight of three separate Stunning Spells he’d shot at them in quick succession. Pius Thicknesse fell to the ground, tiny spikes erupting all over him; making him appear like an overgrown sea urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee and Hermione felt her heart sore as she watched the brothers reconcile; Percy’s departure from the family had left Fred angry and hollow.
"You actually are joking, Perce.... I don't think I've heard you joke since you were--” whatever else Fred was going to say was cut off by the hallway exploding around them; Fred’s eyes widened, and he threw himself at her covering her body with his as rubble that once was a wall rained down upon them. Fred’s body stilled above her, and Hermione felt her world freeze, his lips so close to her cheek let out no breath against her flesh. Tears welled in her eyes as Harry, Ron and Percy pulled giant stones off them, Hermione was numb to her own injuries as tears feel unashamed from her eyes, leaving wet tracks in as they cut through the grime on her skin.
“Freddie, I love you,” she sobbed brokenly, saying the words for what she was certain would be the first and last time. She’d waited too long and now he was dead.
Above them Percy lifted a large rock off his brothers back and Ron pulled Fred from her; rolling him over so he was on his back. Ron fell to his knees next to his brother crying, his fingers searching for a pulse. Harry pulled her into his arms rocking her as she wept into his filthy t-shirt. Percy knelt next to Ron and the brothers had a hushed conversation that Hermione couldn’t hear.
“Renneverate,” Percy called, a shuddering gasp broke the air; Hermione stared wide eyed and hopeful at Fred whose chest was rising and falling; his aqua blue eyes were filled with pain as he stared at her. Hermione scrambled away from Harry, throwing herself over Fred, Fred ran a hand through her curls as she sobbed onto his chest.
“I thought you were dead,” she told him, peppering his face with kisses.
“Good think I’m not, I love you too by the way, trust you to wait until I’m almost dead to finally tell me how you feel” he told her with a pained chuckle.
“I’ll tell you everyday for as long as we live,” she promised kissing him gently on his lips as his brothers stabilised his body so they could move him to safety.
“I’ll hold you to that,” he whispered to her, his eye’s fluttering closed, as unconsciousness claimed him.
When the final battle was won, and all the dust had settled Hermione made good on her promise as she and Fred lived out the life Fred had envisioned the morning of Bill and Fleur’s wedding. When all the dead had been buried, the injured healed and all the damage had been rebuilt; Hermione walked down an aisle on the arm of her father in the Weasley’s meadow, they’d considered the Hogwarts library but in the end the battle was too fresh for them to return to the school. Her and Fred pledged to spend the rest of their lives together and exchanged words of love surrounded by their friends and families.
Fred built them a home in the country with bookshelves in every room for her ever-expanding library. He and George expanded Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes across the globe; by the time, the pair were ready to retire and pass the store onto their children they had thirty stores worldwide.
Hermione made her way up through the Ministry eventually becoming the youngest minister in history. Fred supported her career and encouraged her every day to strive higher.
Fred and Hermione told each other everyday for one hundred years that they loved each other; their final night on planet Earth; older and frailer than they had been in their youth the pair each said, ‘I love you,’ and slipped away into the ever after together. Their daughter Anna found them the next morning, Hermione wrapped in Fred’s arms, both smiling peacefully forever still. With tears in her eyes, she sent her Patronus off to inform her family.
In life Fred and Hermione Weasley had five children, nineteen grandchildren and twenty-three great-grandchildren. The tale of their love would be told to each generation of their descendants as a bedtime story and each new Weasley would attend Hogwarts and search for the person that they would say ‘I love you’ to every day for the rest of their lives.