Title: Destination Wedding
Words: 879
Tags: Post-Hogwarts, Travel
Notes: Written for an ask meme on Tumblr in May 2017. An anonymous requester asked for Fred/Hermione using the prompt "Don't panic, but I think we might have accidentally gotten married."


"Remind me again what we're looking for?" Sweat poured down Hermione's face, down the neck of her shirt, leaving her so soaked she might as well have jumped in the river they'd just crossed a mile back. The humidity and her pounding heart attracted all manner of insects looking for fresh, warm blood on which to feast.

Fred blasted a mosquito the size of a Galleon with his wand, Stunning it in midair. Hermione watched it fall to the forest floor with distaste as she tripped over an exposed tree root.

Fred caught her arm, preventing her from falling. When he let go, she noticed he used his equally sweaty shirt to wipe her sweat off his hand. She rolled her eyes, her mouth opening to comment.

"You know what we're looking for," he said, his good humor still intact despite hours of hiking in extremely uncomfortable conditions.

Hermione still didn't know why she'd agreed to accompany him into the Amazon rainforest. She couldn't even remember saying yes. She'd sworn to herself in 1998 that she would never go camping again, and yet, three years later, here they were.

"Pasiflora mucronata, known to locals as maracuja de restinga. Otherwise known as a species of passion flower that is pollinated by bats."

"Fascinating!" Fred said with a grin.

His cheerfulness only worsened Hermione's own mood. "What do we need it for?"

Fred hitched his pack up higher on his back, and Hermione became distracted by the freckles that dotted his shoulders. They'd been hiking for three days now, and his skin had tanned to a warm, inviting color. Hermione, too, had grown browner than she'd ever been before.

"It's the number one ingredient in the Daydream Charms, which is our most popular product. I've lost touch with my supplier, so I figured I could collect the plant myself."

"And you need me because…?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Fred asked with a snort. "You're a walking library. If I can count on anyone to know how to find Pasiflora mucronata and how to preserve it for the trip back to England, it'd be you."

Hermione's cheeks flushed at the compliment, though she wasn't sure she was grateful for her reputation at the moment as a butterfly the size of her head brushed right past her face. She startled, grasping Fred's pack to keep from falling onto her bum.

He paused and turned around, a question in his eyes, but then he froze.

"Looks like we have company," he said in a mock whisper through the side of his mouth.

Before Hermione could turn to see what had caught Fred's eye, she and Fred were forced together, a hoop of hand-crafted rope tightening around them as four natives hesitantly emerged from the wide-leafed foliage. Both Hermione and Fred's arms were bound at their sides as one of the natives, a young man Hermione assumed to be the leader of this group, approached cautiously.

She and Fred remained still, making themselves less threatening. The man wrapped the excess length of rope around Fred and Hermione's bodies as quickly as he could, ensuring that they could not move a muscle. A woman and two children hovered near a tree, ready to flee at any moment.

When the man was satisfied that she and Fred were no longer a threat, he returned to his family and ushered them back into the depths of the forest, retreating in the opposite direction from which they'd arrived.

The children lingered, approaching the bound captives slowly, and then laughing at them.

"Oh, ha ha," Hermione grumbled. Her face was pressed against Fred's chest, and his chin rested on top of her head. Her nose was beginning to itch but her hands were trapped at her sides, and she was not about to nuzzle Fred to scratch it!

At Hermione's utterance, the children scattered, disappearing among the trees.

"Wait!" Fred called. "You forgot to untie us!"

A moment later, the children inched back, arms laden with leaves and flowers. They circled Fred and Hermione, placing leaves on their heads and tucking the flowers between the ropes and in their hair.

A shout from the forest stopped the children, and they answered back in their language before, giggling, they returned to their parents, leaving Fred and Hermione in quite the predicament.

They waited with bated breath, halfway hoping someone would have mercy on them and come back to release them. After several minutes, that hope flew away like a monstrous Amazonian butterfly.

"Don't panic, Hermione, but I think we might have accidentally gotten married," Fred said, his smile wide despite the situation. She couldn't move enough to see his face, but she could feel his expression change against the top of her head.

"How can you—Fred!" Hermione gasped, wiping the humor off of Fred's face instantly.

"What? What is it?"

"Look!" She jerked her head and twitched her nose toward the flowers trapped—as they were—between the ropes. "The flowers!"

He was quiet for three seconds before he burst into laughter, finally recognizing the white, ten-petaled blooms.

Pasiflora mucronata.