"All your life you'll dream of this

A lovely, lovely night."

"A Lovely Night," from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.

"But don't you realize?" whispered Hermione. "This means, if we can just get the snake-"

But she broke off as yells and shouts and the unmistakable noises of dueling filled the corridor. Hermione looked around and her heart seemed to fail. Death Eaters had penetrated Hogwarts. Fred and Percy had just backed into view, both of them dueling masked and hooded men.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione ran forward to help. Jets of light flew in every direction and the man dueling Percy backed off, fast. Then his hood slipped and they saw a high forehead and streaked hair-

"Hello, Minister!" bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, who dropped in awful discomfort. "Did I mention I'm resigning?"

"You're joking, Perce!" shouted Fred as the Death Eater he was battling collapsed under the weight of three separate Stunning Spells. Thicknesse had fallen to the ground with tiny spikes erupting all over him; he seemed to be turning into some form of sea urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee.

"You actually are joking, Percy . . . I don't think I've heard you joke since you were-"

The air exploded. They had been grouped together, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, and Percy, the two Death Eaters at their feet, one Stunned, the other Transfigured; and in that fragment of a moment, when danger seemed temporarily at bay, the world was rent apart. Hermione felt herself flying through the air, and all she could do was hold as tightly as possible to that thin stick of wood that was her one and only weapon, and shield her head in her arms. She heard the screams and yells of her companions without a hope of knowing what had happened to them.

And then the world resolved itself into pain and semidarkness. She was half buried in the wreckage of a corridor that had been subjected to a terrible attack. Cold air told her that the side of the castle had been blown away, and hot stickiness on her cheek told her that she was bleeding slightly. Then she heard a terrible cry that pulled at her insides, that expressed agony of a kind neither flame nor curse could cause, and she stood up, swaying, more frightened than she had been that day.

And Harry was struggling to his feet in the wreckage, and three redheaded men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart.

Hermione gasped and hurried over, staggering and stumbling over stone and wood recklessly.

"What? Who?" she gasped, stopping short as she came up to them. Her face grew pale and she knelt down on the ground next to Percy silently

"No- no- no!" she could distantly hear someone shouting. "No! Fred! No!"

And Percy was shaking his brother, and Harry was kneeling besides them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face, and all Hermione could do was sit there in shock, holding Fred's rapidly cooling hand in hers and praying that it was all just a nightmare.

When Voldemort had been killed and all of his Death Eaters taken care of, the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione stood together around Fred's body, trying to give each other what little comfort they could. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley stood together with their arms around each other as she cried into his shoulder. Harry was holding Ginny in his arms while Bill, Charlie, and Percy stood together.

George sat next to Fred's body, staring down at the ground, not looking at anyone else. Hermione sat next to him, her head on his shoulders.

Mrs. Weasley suddenly lifted her head up and looked around. "Ron? Where's Ron? Has anyone seen him?" she asked, growing increasingly frantic.

Harry looked up. "Um, Mrs. Weasley? Ron left?"

She stared at him. "He left? What do you mean?"

He shifted nervously. "Um, I don't know where he is. He . . . got mad and . . . he just left."

"Again?" Bill asked.

"Bill?" Mrs. Weasley asked, her eyes narrowing. "What do you mean again? Has he left them before?"

Bill nodded. "Yeah, he showed up at Shell Cottage a few months ago. He didn't really tell us very much, just stayed for a few days and then left. And then when he showed up again later on with Ron and Hermione, I assumed they had gotten back together and didn't think anything of it again."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why is this the first that I'm hearing about this?" She whirled around to face Harry. "Why did he leave this time? Why is he not here with the rest of us, with Fred-" she choked out a sob.

"Umm," Harry looked around uncertainly. "He- he found out something that he- didn't like."

"What? What was so shocking that he had to desert the rest of us?"

"Um, well," Harry stuttered, flustered. "Well, you see . . ."

"He found out that Fred and I have been dating," Hermione said emotionlessly from where she sat next to George. George reached over and put his arm around her, pulling her head down on to his shoulder.

"What?" Mrs. Weasley gasped. "You and Fred? How did I not know about this?"

Hermione shrugged. "There was never really a good time to tell anyone."

Mrs. Weasley looked accusingly at Harry.

"I just found out at the same time as Ron," Harry defended.

"George? How long have you known about this?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

George gave a sad smirk. "Fred's had a crush on her ever since she hit Malfoy in her third year. You all are all blind. I don't know how you managed to miss it. They've been playing footsie under the table and sneaking of together to snog for years." His eyes darkened. "Fred was talking about shopping for rings."

Mrs. Weasley looked at Hermione and her gaze softened. "Oh, you poor dear." She bent down next to Hermione and pulled her into her arms.

. . . . .

Hermione sat on top of the astronomy tower where Fred had found her three years before after the Yule Ball. She wrapped her arms around her legs and pulled them to her chest, resting her chin on her knees as she gazed up at the stars. She closed her eyes as she felt a warm breeze brush past her face.

Fred would never want her to spend the rest of her life moping after him, she knew. And when she had had a sufficient amount of time to recover, perhaps she would move on. But for now, she would remember him. Remember him in her dreams of that lovely night.

I'm not going to defend killing Fred. I just think it makes a better story this way.

Portions of this chapter were taken and adapted from The Deathly Hallows.