A very long time later...

Hermione opened her eyes and smiled. She was lying in a patch of grass not too far from the Burrow, just a little way beyond the lake. The last thing she remembered was closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep, aged one hundred and twenty four years old. She knew it was time, time for her to go. She felt it that day, it seemed like it was almost the best day of her life. Everything was that little bit clearer and brighter, she saw her children and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. There was something in the air, something she could almost see and feel. As she said goodbye to those she loved dearly, she couldn't help but sigh in relief at the same time. Finally, it was her turn to go.

Despite what had happened to Fred all those years ago, and despite the fact that she'd never found love again in the arms of another, Hermione wasn't in a rush to leave. She loved her children far more than her want to see Fred again, and she loved her family too much to wish time away. She knew she'd get to him eventually. She never stopped wishing Fred had been more a part of that time she'd had with them, but that was the way things had gone. Hermione wasn't the first to leave, it turned out she was actually the last. All the Weasley's had gone before her, and Harry went a month or two ago. For the first time in her life, she'd just started to feel lonely and that was when she knew that it was time and she was tired. She would miss her children but one day, they'd be together again and they were all happy and healthy and content in their own lives.

She stirred in the grass and sat up, noticing that her body was no longer that of an old woman's but more like it had been when she was in her teens. She breathed in the air around her, smelling the plants and trees and flowers on the wind. She felt giddy, there was lightness in her that had been lost to her since the final battle. As the place began to come into focus a little more, Hermione could hear voices not too far away. Familiar voices but voices she hadn't heard in a while. Laughter too. Everyone was outside in the garden, enjoying the sunshine. She could hear Harry's chuckle, Ginny giggling beside him. She heard George barking with laughter as Charlie told them all a funny story from his dragon-keeping days.

Hermione got to her feet and began to wander idly towards them. She was in no rush and neither were they, they had forever now, all of them. Sirius Black's voice joined the mix, and Remus Lupin's. She heard Angelina and Tonks, Molly and Arthur, Percy, and a few voices she didn't recognise too. As she neared the garden, one or two people began to spot her and smiled warmly at her. Their missing friend finally returned to them. Hermione smiled back, walking lazily up the path to greet them.

And then she saw him.

Her simple, slow, nonchalant steps suddenly forgotten, she flew through the garden as fast as her feet could carry her. Their eyes finding each other at the exact same moment. Fred was faster than a jack rabbit, on his feet and across the small expanse before anyone really knew what was happening.

"Fred..." Hermione mumbled into his shoulder as she crashed into him and threw her arms around him.

"Oh gods Hermione, I've waited so long for this..." he mumbled back, his arms so tight around her she wasn't sure he'd ever let her go. She didn't want him to.

Tears sprung to her eyes and fell down over her cheeks, but she didn't care. She was home. For the first time since the final battle, that feeling of anxiety and dread she'd been carrying with her, that feeling that just never left because the relief of seeing Fred alive never came, seemed to lift and float away. She felt her heart swell, she felt free again.

"I missed you so much," she sobbed, "I missed you so much, every damn day...I just...Merlin I love you Fred..."

"I missed you too," Fred murmured, pulling himself back slightly but his arms never leaving her body. He just wanted to look into those eyes again. He'd have given anything since he died, just to see those eyes one more time. "I'm so sorry..." he whispered.

Hermione continued to cry, stepping up on tiptoes and planting a soppy, wet kiss on his lips. "And so you bloody well should be," she growled.

Fred chuckled, kissing her again fiercely, feeling as though he truly was in heaven now. She was always the one thing he was missing.

"I'm serious Fred!" she huffed, stamping her foot and stepping back from him. "You have no idea how angry I am that you went and died on me!"

"Oh I think I do," he smiled. "I heard every word you said."

"Oh you did, did you?" Hermione snapped.

"Yes, I did," he said, clearing his throat and mimicking Hermione quite well. "I can't believe he left me to deal with all this alone! The audacity he had to fucking die on me! I don't care that he couldn't help it, selfish arsehole, couldn't just wait for me, could he? Just left. No goodbyes, no apologies, what even is that?" He looked at Hermione with raised eyebrows.

"I stand by everything I said," she shrugged.

"Of course you do, like you'd ever admit you're wrong," he scoffed.

The rest of their friends and family were now stood around looking a little shocked at the exchange currently going on before them. The reunion started the way they expected it to, it didn't seem to be ending the way the thought it would though.

"You left me pregnant-"

"I never knew you were pregnant! You never told me!"

"-and I had to raise two children all alone-"

"Again, not my fault!"

"Because you couldn't dodge a falling bloody wall!"

"Well I'm much quicker in the afterlife, if that makes it better?" Fred said with added snark.

"No! That does not make it better! How would that make it better?!" Hermione screeched. "You bloody wanker! You total arsehole! Merlin you're the most infuriating man I've ever met!"

"Oh calm your tits Granger, it all worked out in the end," he grinned, earning him a frustrated slap on the arm from the furious bookworm.

"That is not the point," Hermione said, glaring at him. "I won't ever forgive you for it."

"I wouldn't forgive me either," he said, smiling softly at her and tugging her back into another hug.

"This isn't over Fred, I'm still mad at you for dying," she huffed, snuggling into him further still.

"Of course you are," he said.

"Don't patronise me."

"I wouldn't dream of it love."

"I mean it Fred..."

The group around them were now trying to hold back their smirks and smiles at the couple who looked like they hadn't been apart two minutes and yet had been apart for a whole lifetime. Fred pulled back a little, pressing a light kiss on Hermione's cheek and sliding his hands down her arms to link his fingers with hers.

"Fancy going for a walk?" he asked.

Hermione nodded, smiling at the knowing crowd as her and Fred walked back out the garden and towards the lake.

.

"Did...did you hear all the other stuff too?" Hermione asked as they reached the little spot they used to frequent, back when times were easy and they were still alive and in love.

"I heard it all Hermione..." Fred said, his voice breaking. She looked up at him in shock, her eyes wide at the raw pain and emotion she could see etched upon his face.

"Fred..." she murmured, reaching out to run her fingers along his cheek and rest her hand on his face.

"I'd have given anything, anything, Hermione, to have gone back and been with you," he whispered. "To hear you cry and not be able to do anything...to see you so upset and alone and afraid, only being able to watch..." he petered off, looking into her eyes as his own tears descended.

"I don't blame you Freddie," she whispered. "I'm mad as hell that you died but you know I don't really, truly, blame you..."

"I know," he said, sniffing as he tried to pull himself together. "But watching you live without me...gods that hurt."

"I never really lived without you," she said softly.

"I know, that's what hurt," he croaked out a chuckle. "Knowing you never really could. I wanted you to find someone so badly, and yet I just knew you wouldn't. It was always you and me, and Merlin I hated how unfair it was that you lost out on life just as much as I did, all because my heart stopped beating and yours didn't."

"I'm sorry I never told you about the kids," Hermione said.

"You have no idea how infuriated I was to learn about that once I'd died," he reprimanded her softly.

"I know," she murmured. "I'm so sorry Fred. I'm so so sorry. You might have lived if I'd told you, and you would have been the best father..." she broke a little as that same, unjust pain (tinged with a little bit of guilt) pulsed inside of her.

"Hermione I'm not angry for me," Fred said. "Well, not anymore. I'm angry because you had to carry that all alone for so long. I'm angry because I couldn't be there for you, I couldn't help, I couldn't wipe your tears away or lessen the load. I couldn't hold your hand..."

Hermione slipped her hands around his waist and leant into him, sighing as his arms came to rest across her shoulders. She gripped him tighter as she thought about all the times he'd probably watched her, heard her, seen her struggle and the absolute helplessness that overcame him. She thought about how selfish she was to keep something so big and real and important from him, and how it could have ended so differently had she not made rash and stupid decisions. She still remembered how right those decisions felt back then, all the way up until his untimely death. Once it was too late, then she knew it was the wrong choice she'd made.

"I'm so sorry Fred, I was so wrong..." she mumbled into his chest with a sob.

"Wow, Hermione Granger admitting she's wrong, I'll take that," he chuckled, the crack in his voice still apparent. "How about we call it even?"

"Huh?" Hermione sniffed as she pulled away to look at him.

"I died, you didn't tell me you were pregnant...I'd say we're even..." he said, his voice a little tired and heavy as he spoke.

"If I had told you, our lives could have been so different," she whispered, looking up at him in remorse.

"So why didn't you?" he said. "And don't give me any of those crappy half-truths you gave mum and dad."

"I didn't tell you, because I knew you'd have wanted me to stop fighting," her voice trembled as she spoke, "and I knew you'd never have asked me to, not after asking me to stay. And I knew...I knew that if you'd known...I'd have wanted to stop fighting too and...and I had to fight...I just had to. I needed to."

Fred kissed her softly, wiping away her fallen tears and hugging her to him. "I know."

"You do?" she sniffed.

"Yeah, I do. You just needed to say it," he said. "Sometimes you just need to say things, admit things, before you can move on."

"What happens now?" she asked softly, timidly.

"We're in heaven, what d'you want to happen now?" He smiled, smoothing his thumbs across her cheekbones.

"Do the kids come here at the end of their lives too?" Hermione said.

"Yeah, they'll get here eventually," Fred said.

"I'm sorry you never got to know them. I'm sorry they never got to know you..." she sighed and shook her head, hating herself more in that moment than she ever had done before.

"I'll get to know them," he said, pulling her eyes back up to his. "We have all the time in the world up here. I suggest we make the most of it before our children get old and come to join us."

"Do you still want to be with me?" Hermione croaked. "I mean, I get if you'd rather not. Or you'd rather start again and take things slow-hmph!"

Hermione let out a muffled squeal of surprise as Fred pushed his lips onto hers. He wrapped an arms around her waist and gently gripped the back of her neck with his other hand. He kissed her like he'd kissed her that day in the corridor at school. He kissed her like he still loved her and so much more.