A/N: This is another one shot. I'm not feeling either of the multi-chapter fics I've started at the moment, so bear with me for awhile whilst I try to get my act together. As always, let me know what you think and if you have any requests/questions/complaints. Happy reading!
Fred looked down at his stifling suit and grimaced, straightening his tie. It felt as though the bloody thing was choking him and at this point in time he was almost tempted to let it. He could hear the murmurs from the room at large and tried to block them out as he proceeded to clench and unclench his fists repeatedly, trying not to freak out anymore than he already was.
"Fred, calm the hell down!" He heard his twin mutter from by his side.
"She's late!" He hissed back, unable to keep the anxiety from his voice. Of all the days she could have tarnished her perfect record for being on time!
He took a deep breath and thought of all the other times, the ones where she had never been late.
Their first date (or at least what he liked to think of as their first - he never counted the debacle with the exploding cauldron containing the base for the new and improved Canary Creams), sitting next to the lake near the Burrow. He'd packed lunch himself, though several minutes (and bleeding noses) later, it became apparent his dastardly twin had decided to "help". He still found it hard to believe she'd agreed to another.
She had taken charge of the next one, as she tended to when things went wrong the first (and second) time. It had involved a splendid trip to the muggle side of London, where he had proceeded to lose his lunch aboard some spinning metal contraption and realized that his debilitating fear of heights was something he hadn't quite grown out of at the current time.
Yet she still came back for more.
Over two years had passed in a sort of haze, filled with sweet memories that overrode the darkness of post-war life. She made him remember the people that were lost and she helped him forget the pain. He lay next to her many nights when her screams tore the air and she woke, trembling and sobbing as she recalled the terror.
The first time he told her he loved her, when he'd come home from work to find her covered in flour, something that had once resembled scones lying on the floor and a look of utter defeat on her face. She had burst into tears and flung herself at him, narrowly avoiding a similar fate to aforementioned scones.
Their first anniversary, when Fred had gone down on one knee and she had fled, leaving a rather heartbroken boy alone in a French restaurant with no hope for the future.
Of course she had come back in the end, a week later, and apologized profusely for being a pathetically nervous wreck.
He had promptly gotten back on his knees and virtually thrown the ring at her before she could run again.
This time, she had said yes.
They made a life together, formed from broken pieces and held together with the promise of forever. The tiny flat they shared had seen nights filled with laughter and friendship, and days, too many, filled with pain but together they had endured.
He had helped her when Crookshanks had passed away, and she had held him through the loss of a brother, Charlie, to the dragons he had loved so dearly. She had kept the business going when he and George had been too broken to even get up and without her, he mused, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes most likely wouldn't have survived.
He surely wouldn't have.
Fred loved Hermione with every fiber of his being.
But he might have to kill her for being late, of all things, to their wedding.