Hermione screamed. She had run all the way from the front of the castle, knowing that she needed to find Fred, but she was too late.

Too late to save him.

Hit by a spell, one of the walls of the castle had crumbled and was falling onto his body. In agonisingly slow motion. Hermione was fixed to the spot; unable to move and cast a protego spell to protect the wizard she loved. So she screamed again, trying to get Percy's attention.

No-one heard her.

"Hey, love, hey. It's OK…"

Strong arms pinned her body, and she thrashed against them, trying to free herself so that she could run towards Fred and see if there was anything that she could do for him. But she knew it would be too late. The wall had fallen, and covered his body. Tears streamed down her face. She had no idea how she would live without the happiest, most loving man she knew. And she had never even told him how she felt; that he was the wizard she had always truly loved and wanted. She screamed again, knowing that she would never now get the chance to tell him.

"Hermione!" She heard Fred's voice. He sounded worried, and she looked around, trying to determine how she could hear the wizard who was lying on the ground, buried under the rubble. Was he taunting her from beyond the grave? Trying to call back before his final breath left his gorgeous body; wanting to tell her he felt the same way? That would truly be the end of her; knowing that they loved each other and had never even kissed.

She heard him call her name again. His voice was a bit louder and more urgent this time, and Hermione felt a fog begin to lift from her mind. She struggled back into consciousness, turned her face towards something that smelled remarkably like Fred and opened her tear-filled eyes.

"There you are, love," Fred said, cuddling her closer to his body. "You were having a nightmare."

He pressed a series of kisses to her lips and cheeks, wiping tears with his thumbs and then settling himself back down on the pillow with Hermione cradled on his chest. He stroked her hair, which had become damp with the sweat of night-time anxiety. And, perhaps, because of how much wine she had drunk before they had headed off and finished their evening with a sexual adventure that had made them giggle.

Hermione sobbed for a few more moments, needing to rid herself of the emotion, and Fred simply rocked her in his arms.

"It's because we went to the castle, isn't it?"

Hermione nodded into his chest, seeking sanctuary in the scent of him. She loved the way he smelled, especially when, like on the previous evening, he took a quick shower before getting into bed and smelled of himself mixed with the soap that his mum made. "Probably," she said, moving her fingers over the planes of his chest and lightly stroking the tuft of red hair under his arm.

Fred sighed, both from the enjoyment of Hermione's touch and from sadness that their lovely adventure had caused her pain. "Sorry, love."

It had been his idea initially. He had mentioned a few days prior that he had always had a fantasy about making love to her in their old common room. And, when he saw all of the current Hogwarts professors settling themselves around a beach fire with a few bottles of firewhisky, he also saw his chance. He whispered his idea into his wife's ear and, just a few minutes later, side-alonged her to the temporary Hogwarts apparition point that Minerva had created to save those who were helping with the repairs from having to walk to and from the gate.

"It's OK," Hermione whispered back, her tears abating as her stroking continued. A small smile crossed her face as she wiped her cheeks with a finger. "It was fun," she told him, "though I'll confess I'm a bit sore…"

A frown crossed Fred's face and he lifted Hermione slightly, pulling her pillow out from under her and turning it to the cool side. He then did the same with his own. He felt bad that he hadn't stopped things sooner. They had both been a bit overwhelmed by the magic that had affected them through their bond with George, but he should have known better. And Hermione had had her period as well, and even with all the spells that Fleur had taught her, he should have had more self-control. He could have said no.

Hermione sensed his concern through the bond and immediately sought to make him feel better. She had been just as keen to drink, go on adventures and make love as he had, and she didn't want Fred to feel responsible. "It's not your fault," she told him, holding his gaze until he nodded in acceptance of her assessment of the situation. "Could we have a cup of tea, do you think?" she asked, in a quieter voice again, knowing that he liked to do things for her; that it made him feel good when she needed him. She was beginning to learn to allow and even ask him to do more for her in this way.

"Course," he said, and kissed her forehead before sliding out of bed and padding to the kitchen. He became aware that he also felt a bit sore, and found he was almost pleased at the idea that Hermione wasn't the only one who would suffer. A few minutes later he was back in the bedroom with two mugs of milky tea and the biscuit tin.

They sat together and chatted for a while. Hermione shared a few more details of her nightmare, Fred whispered reassurance and they both enjoyed the intimacy of their chat in the wee hours. Twenty minutes later, Fred cast a cooling charm over both of their pillows and then they settled back down in the hope of sleeping through the rest of the night.

About three hours later, Fred groaned when he was awoken by his vibrating wand and realised what time it was. He would have liked to sleep for longer but, with George away and business so good, he knew he needed to get moving and down to the shop. He was also, he remembered, with a smile despite the way he felt, not entirely sure where his managers had spent the night.

"We need to stop having Sunday weddings," he groaned softly into Hermione's ear, and she nestled closer into him.

"I'm not going to argue with that," she said, rolling over and raising herself up onto her knees before reaching over to the bedside table. "Look, here's a hangover truffle." She popped one into her own mouth as well. "Shall I make us some tea while you run us a bath to share before work?"

"Oh, Gods, I love you," he said, reaching blindly for the chocolate remedy that she gave him. "I'm going into proper production with these this week," he said, ever the business wizard. "We'll see what feedback we get from the ones I gave out at the wedding and, as long as it's good, I'll make a bigger batch of samples and give them out free at the Ball. As all the ingredients are commonly used potions, we don't need any kind of paperwork. And," he flicked his eyebrows up and down, "we can then watch business come in after everyone's marvelled at them on Saturday morning."

"Excellent idea," she agreed, although she was finding it hard to summon the level of enthusiasm that Fred deserved. Hermione pointed her wand towards the kitchen, setting water to boil. She wished that there was another day of the weekend left, so that she could get the flat straight, get herself straight and maybe have a bit of rest before heading into another week at the shop. And, she realised with dismay as she walked through the living room and glanced out of the window, it was pouring with rain. Rain that was falling loudly onto the dry cobbles of Diagon Alley that had enjoyed so much sun for the past few weeks. Because it had been so dry, the rain wasn't soaking into the hard ground. The few people that were out at this early hour looked grumpy, despite having impermeable charms to protect them from the downpour. That was a bummer.

"Let's hope the lovebirds didn't sleep on the roof," Fred joked as he entered the kitchen right behind her. "Oh Gods," he added, seeing the state of the worksurface, which was flooded with water from the window, which they had left open. He hadn't noticed when he had made tea in the night, but perhaps it hadn't been raining then.

"Oh no!" Hermione cried out, running towards the window. Fred cast a quick spell to close it and then the two turned to the worksurface, which held a basket of baking ingredients and several cardboard packets of pasta, rice and couscous.

"Adsicco!" Hermione cast her spell at the dried goods on the counter, and a fraction of a second later, Fred added his own.

"Impervius!" he said.

The two spells combined, and the result was spectacularly awful. The goods that had previously been wet – and slightly swollen – dried out so quickly that they shattered. The resulting explosion covered the kitchen in a layer of mixed carbohydrates and floured cardboard. Several hours later, when she regained her sense of humour about the incident, Hermione would tell Molly that she would never have imagined how bad such a concoction could smell. In the moment, she simply stood there. A couple of tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I'll do it," Fred said, setting his shoulders and readying his wand to clean up the mess. On another day, he would have found the scene hilarious. But he was sore, aching and sad that he had hurt Hermione. Not to mention concerned about how busy the store would be that day, what with George out of action. "Here," he cleared the space around the kettle, indicating that Hermione should focus on her desire to make tea.

Hermione didn't want Fred to see that she was upset again, although even as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand she became aware of his hand on her shoulder. Of course; he could feel everything through the bond. She gave his fingers a quick pat, and turned back to the kettle. She had picked up Fred's concern that things would be busier with George away, and tried to spur herself into action, knowing that even a witch couldn't stop time. Well, not without a time turner, and she no longer had one of those at her disposal.

Just over an hour later, and feeling slightly better for two cups of tea each, a plate of scrambled eggs and a long shared soak in the bath, she and Fred walked down the stairs to the shop. When they opened the door, they saw that Verity and Lee were both already down there and working away.

"Are you decent?" Fred called, unable to keep the smile out of his voice.

"I am," said Verity, "but your mate's a bit coarse sometimes!"

"Ha ha," said Lee, coming up from behind her and looping his arms around the blonde witch's body; the gesture a clear signal of their now very intimate relationship. "You weren't saying that last night!" He kissed her neck.

Verity half-heartedly swatted him with her hand, but it was clear that she was finding it hard to stop smiling.

"Good night then?!" Fred teased. At least this was something to be cheerful about.

Verity raised her eyebrows, readying herself for a retort, and then relented into a soft smile instead. "Great night," she breathed. "Thanks for the loan of the private spaces, which are now all back to normal…"

"Yeah," Lee laughed. "We thought it would be fun to sleep on the roof … until the rain began!"

Verity chuckled in agreement. "At that point, we decided to apparate ourselves downstairs," she flicked her head to indicate the front door of the shop, "and make a nest in the staff room!"

"I enlarged your parasol," Lee added, pointing his finger upwards to indicate the roof. "So don't be surprised when you go up there; I thought it might save the sofas from getting soaked…"

"Oh, thank you," said Hermione. She hadn't even thought about that. "That's the first good thing that has happened this morning!" She gave a half smile to the two of them. "I'm glad you had a good night, and I'm really happy for you both."

Verity looked at Hermione as she turned and began to walk towards the back office. She had no doubt of the sincerity of the younger witch's words, but it was clear that Hermione was unhappy about something. But Verity decided not to comment.

Fred nodded his own thanks to Lee for the thoughtful gesture. "You've had breakfast?" he checked, looking at the direction of the staff room, where the fridge had been under a bit more pressure than usual over the past few days, given the extra help they had drafted in to cope with demand in the shop itself. Having extra staff was working really well for Fred and George though. The investment more than paid for itself, allowing them to focus on product creation and production while Verity and Lee did the day-to-day management and oversaw the sales staff.

"Yeah, thanks," Lee said, "but we pretty much cleaned it out, so I've sent off an urgent floo delivery order this morning to restock it." He nodded towards the nook where the owls lived. "There's not much left, especially with the increase in staff numbers. It's due at ten. We'll be alright til it comes, though; George isn't here to drink all the coffee!"

Fred nodded. Part of the philosophy that he and George had woven into their business was that their staff and helpers should enjoy food and drink on them while working. The cost of this was minimal, in the general scheme of things, and that was another thing which more than paid for itself when it came to the loyalty and goodwill that their staff felt towards the twins and the shop. They had picked up early in their career, mostly thanks to Verity describing the downsides of her previous employment, that too many employers skimped on even the basics, like tea and coffee, which resulted in disgruntled employees who felt undervalued. So they supplied sandwiches, cake, biscuits and a range of drinks for all their workers, who loved them for it. And worked hard, so that they would be able to keep a job at a shop that they loved.

"Are you alright, lovely?" Fred asked Hermione when, just a few minutes later, he entered the office that he, Hermione and George shared. Hermione was seated at her desk, surrounded by stacks of boxes and an assortment of parchment and multi-coloured muggle stationery items. She was moving things around and looking frazzled.

"I will be," she sighed, "when I've made sense of this lot. Every time I think I'm getting on top of things, something happens." She looked up at Fred. "They're good things, like you and me getting together and married in the same weekend," she looked at him fondly; her love for Fred temporarily making her forget what a crap morning she was having. "Or Charlie finding Lauren, or George and Angie getting married, but I honestly feel like I haven't stopped. And," she indicated her parchment and then picked up a pink pad of muggle paper, flipping through it to show him a series of lists, "I never get to the end of one of my lists before something happens and I need to make another. She sighed. "I could do with a day just to hide away somewhere and get on top of my lists!"

"Well, why don't you do that then?" Fred asked.

"Well," she replied, lifting up a pile of the boxes, "because I also need to do some checking of the date box inventory, and I need to get to thinking about the back to school stuff. And I don't know whether you've realised, but there's precious little in the fridge upstairs beyond cold pizza and a soggy old cabbage, and we don't even have pasta and rice now so we either need to go shopping or eat out, and I don't want to eat out all week." Fred noticed that her voice was sounding more and more stressed. "I don't have the energy for much at all," she said, sighing. "Oh, hello there," she said, and Fred turned to see Oswald swooping to sit on the edge of the wicker basket that sat on the corner of Hermione's desk and served as her in tray.

Hermione quickly opened her desk drawer and swapped Oswald's letter for a couple of owl treats.

"Do you want me to tell Georgie we won't be going for brunch then?" Fred asked. His face, when Hermione looked up with concern in her eyes, was expressionless, and for once she couldn't sense his emotion through their bond. She realised that he must have damped it down. He must be disappointed in her for not remembering.

"I'm so sorry," she said, her eyes filling with tears as she read what was on the letter that Oswald had brought. "I forgot that, and," she half-heartedly waved the letter at him, "I forgot that I also said I would meet Ron and Harry for coffee in the Alley this morning. I forgot to close the kitchen window, and I forgot we need food, and I feel like I'm a rubbish wife and an even more rubbish employee and friend and sister and…" She trailed off, her throat thick with a lump that she tried to swallow, and her eyes overflowing with tears. "I just feel really crap, Fred. Crap and overwhelmed, and…" Fred struggled to hear her through her tears, "…and I just want my Mum…"