"Hermione! Come on, love, we're going to be late!"
Hermione groaned quietly. She'd been standing in front of the mirror for the past hour. Or was it three..? Whatever it was, it was too long a time to be spent on just her hair. She couldn't get one side of the curls to lie softly on her shoulders; it kept frizzing out. Mentally waving a white flag of surrender, she looked around her bedside table, now a mess of hair pins, clips, and a suspicious looking jar of hair potion, and grabbed the first elastic she saw. Running her fingers through her brown curls, she pulled them up into a simple ponytail. Not her best, she thought as she examined her work in the mirror, but it would have to do. Twirling so her baby blue dress sparkled faintly, she smiled and walked out of her and Fred's room to meet him at the bottom of the stairs.
He looked dashing as usual in his deep blue suit. She'd seen him coveting the suit when they'd gone window shopping in Muggle London, and had bought it for him while he was distracted by the computer game section. But the look on his face when he'd unwrapped it was nothing to his expression now. The sparkle of his eyes outdid the sparkle of her dress, and that familiar Weasley blush was threatening to creep up on his neck and ears. "You look beautiful, 'Mione," he said softly, smiling.
Hermione felt a bit of a blush on her own cheeks. "Thank you, Fred. You don't look too bad yourself."
" I should hope not," he said in a mock pompous voice not unlike Percy's, "I spent nearly an hour picking lint off my suit."
She laughed, her blush receding. It was so easy to be around Fred. She never had to worry about whether she was offending him or not. He was very easygoing, with a come-what-may attitude. While it had irritated her at first, she had now come to realize that no matter how stressful her job at the Ministry was, or how snippy she was after a long day of working, he would always be there, with strong arms, a cup of tea, and a joke to ease her tension.
"I'm so excited for Gin's baby shower," she said with a smile. "She's going to make a wonderful mum."
"Yeah, she will," Fred mused. "She won't take any crap from Harry, that's for sure. When it's his turn to change the baby, he won't have a doubt in the world – and a sore ear from her pulling on it too."
Hermione rolled her eyes and playfully smacked him on the arm. "Come on, you wanker. That's not what I meant."
He recoiled when she hit him and cradled his arm as if in a sling. "Ouch! That's my wand arm!" he complained, winking.
Hermione gave him an unimpressed look.
"Okay, okay," he relented, offering her his arm. "Careful, though. Wouldn't want to bang me up too hard, right?" She grinned as he opened the door to their cottage, ushering her out.
Hermione concentrated on an image of the Burrow, and clasped Fred's arm tight. As she felt her feet leaving the ground, she heard him whisper in her ear, "You really do look beautiful," before she spun into a vortex of colors, a small smile still on her face as she and Fred disappeared with a loud pop.