"Hermione dear, don't you think this would look lovely on the tables for the reception?" Mrs. Weasley asked from across the table, holding up a picture of what Hermione thought looked like a stone trophy with vines and flowers overflowing from the cup. She and Fred had taken a day off at the end of May to finalize their wedding plans with the matriarch of the family, hoping to nail down exactly what they wanted. They must have been the most indecisive couple in history with their planning so far. Hermione couldn't quite figure out why they were taking their sweet time with the wedding. It was supposed to be this big event in their lives yet it just felt like a formality at this point.

She tried to make it seem like she was considering the gaudy decoration, knowing how much Mrs. Weasley enjoyed the planning process. "I think we were looking for something a little simpler. Those are lovely though." She added with a smile.

So far the only thing that had been definitively decided was her dress. They had discussed location at length and when neither of them had strong preferences Mrs. Weasley immediately suggested the Burrow, which was fine with them. Today they had decided on a guest list and food, the rest of the details were debated between the couple who both wanted a smaller ceremony, and Mrs. Weasley who insisted they have a larger one. For it wasn't everyday one of the golden trio and a Weasley get married, the older witch pointed out several times.

Fred bumped her knee from under the table and she looked up from the list of guests that Mrs. Weasley had written up. She raised her eyebrows at him and he gestured towards the door.

"Mum we're going to take a quick break," he said as they stood up from the table. "Maybe take a walk and discuss some of the details."

Mrs. Weasley nodded and waved her hand at them, not even bothering to look up from the magazine she was holding. The two left the Burrow quickly and revealed in the crisp nighttime air. They had been cooped up inside with wedding magazines and drawing pads all day; Hermione had started feeling stir crazy about three hours into the planning and was grateful for the distraction.

"I'm starting to think our original idea of eloping was the way to go." Hermione said when they had walked far enough away to ensure not being heard. Fred chuckled and put his arm around her shoulders.

"Why is this so difficult?" She asked him, "With Ginny it was like she had already planned the whole day out in her head. Every detail was a simple decision because she already knew what she wanted."

"Well what do you want love? You really never thought about your dream wedding as a kid?" He asked her.

"Well of course I did, everyone does. But I don't really think that the wedding I dreamed up when I was seven would be appropriate now." She sighed and stopped walking as they reached the edge of the pond, "All I want is to be with you, I could care less about what the stupid archway looks like or which song gets played while I walked down the aisle." She bent over to pick up a rock from the shoreline. Turning it in her fingers she examined it before tossing it into the water, seeing the ripples form on the smooth surface.

Fred turned her towards him and looked down at her, "You know eloping is still an option right? Ultimately this is for us, and we should have the opportunity to do it how we want to."

She smiled slightly at him before shaking her head. "You know we can't do that to your mother. Could you imagine if we went back in and cancelled all of her plans? It won't be so bad, just have to smile and nod at this point."

He smiled back at her and stepped forward to pull her into his arms, hearing her sigh at the contact.

"I'm still in favor of the swamp wedding but Mum seemed to nix that one pretty fast." He said to her amusement.

It was three weeks before the big day and Hermione woke from sleep with a jolt. Scrambling over Fred's legs she raced to the bathroom just in time to be sick. After her body stopped heaving, she rested her head against the cool porcelain of the loo and breathed through the cramping pain in her stomach. As she felt another wave of nausea come up she heard knocking at the bathroom door. Bending over the bowl she felt her mouth fill with saliva, unable to answer.

"Hermione?" Fred's voice came from the other side. Her abrupt exit from bed had woken him and he stood there in his boxers listening as she was sick once again. He tried to door knob only to find it locked.

"Love are you okay?" In the time they had been together she hadn't been sick once. He waited a few more minutes without a response before going back to the bedroom to retreive his wand. It was still dark outside as he glanced at the windows, he wondered briefly what time it was as he made his way back through the apartment.

"Alohamora." He said when he got back to the bathroom, pointing his wand at the door. He heard it click and pushed open the door, wincing at the scene inside. Hermione was sitting on the floor, her cheek pressed against the cool surface of the tub that she leaned against and her eyes were closed. Her hair was matted to her temple with sweat and she was breathing slowly. He knelt down next to her and rubbed his hand up and down her arm.

"You okay?" He asked again.

She opened one eye to look at him, "Do I look okay?"

He smiled slightly at her. "Not really."

She groaned suddenly and pushed herself over to the toilet to be sick again. With nothing left in her stomach she simply heaved for a few seconds while Fred ran his hand up and down her back as her body convulsed. When she finally felt the spasms stop she took a deep breath and leaned back against his knee.

"This is why you don't get to cook anymore." She said as he helped her to her feet to get to the sink.

He grinned as they both knew she was the one to make dinner last night. After helping her back to bed and brewing a cup of peppermint tea, he laid back down with her until she fell asleep. A few hours later he woke again for work and made his way quietly around the apartment getting ready. Hermione was still deep in sleep when he left so he jotted a quick note for her and left it on the counter.

When Hermione woke a few hours later she felt completely improved. Her throat was raw from throwing up but other than that, she wouldn't even have known she had been sick this morning. She dressed quickly in shorts, a green tank top and thin knit sweater before making her way to the kitchen. She drank a large glass of water and smiled as she saw the paper with Fred's scribbled writing on it.

I'll cook tonight.
-F

She shook her head at the note, thinking back to their dinner last night. She went over everything she had made, trying to determine if anything had been undercooked. When she couldn't think of anything she chalked it up to some sort of virus.

She left the flat a few minutes later and headed down to Diagon Alley to get some last minute errands done, taking the back door to avoid the chaos of the shop. Given that it was early in the day the streets were still busy with shoppers and she had to dodge the other witches and wizards as she walked. She passed Madam Malkins shop and glanced quickly at the window display. After a few more steps she stopped suddenly and backtracked, looking again at the object that had caught her eye in the display.

Her thoughts raced as she forgot about her plans to run to the bookstore. She thought back to recent months and did some mental math, feeling her heart beat start to race in her chest. As the feeling became stronger she turning quickly on the spot for a very different location, arriving with a crack outside of the hospital. A few of the nurses greeted her as she passed quickly down the halls searching for an empty exam room. When she finally found one she locked the door, bee lined to the cupboard and went to work, her hands shaking the entire time.

When she lowered her shirt several minutes later, her hands were completely still. She felt like her chest was being constricted and she tried to draw a shaky breath. She sat in the room for what seemed like hours, thinking about what had just happened, before standing and making her way back to the hallway. She felt like a zombie as her mind raced a million miles a minute.

"Hermione!" Draco exclaimed when she passed the open door of his office.

She turned at his voice and put a forced smile on her face. He furrowed his eyes a bit as he caught site of her face, sensing something was wrong. "Everything okay?" He asked.

She nodded, trying not to let any of her emotions show. "Yeah, just forgot something in my office yesterday that I needed."

He nodded and watched as she quickly turned and made her way towards the entrance. He had been meaning to ask her about a recent case they had worked on together but seeing the urgency in her pace, decided that it could wait.

She apparated as soon as she could and found herself at the end of Diagon Alley once again. Retraced her steps from this morning she skipped the stores that she had on her list earlier and headed straight towards the joke shop. She was surprised at how long the hospital visit had taken her as it was now past curfew and she was essentially alone on the street.

As the shop came into view she saw the redhead from this morning step out of the door to adjust a sign on the outside window. Seeing him, she felt everything that had happened today come flooding at her and her lips turned upwards into a grin.

"Fred!" She yelled out and started to jog towards him.

He looked up at her voice and smiled when he saw who it was. When he checked on her earlier today she had already left the apartment so he has assumed she was feeling better, and she certainly looked better as she headed towards him. He started walking in her direction to meet her but then froze suddenly, seeing two figures appear besides her. His heart leapt to his throat at the site. "Hermione!" He yelled quickly in warning.

She too had paused in her advance seeing three people come from nowhere around him. They were all dressed in black cloaks, the same ones that had been haunting them for almost a year now. "Fred!" She called out, her voice panicked.

They were both too late in their warnings and Hermione froze as she saw the figures around Fred attack him. Her heart skipped in her chest as she saw him fall under the attacker's blows, so focused on him she didn't even notice the people around her until it was too late. They grabbed her arms as she tried to step forward to go to him. Her wand fell from her hand and she cried out when her right arm was wrenched behind her, forcing her to her knees. She hit out at whoever was holding her with her other arm, but a sharp blow across the side of her face caused her vision to blur. She tried to blink away the waves going across her eyes and turned dazed back towards Fred. Through her blurred vision she saw him lying on the cobblestones with his attackers reaching down towards his body. She tried to move towards him again before another hand struck her, blacking her vision completely.

As she regained consciousness, she became slowly aware of her cheek resting on something cold, hard and excessively uncomfortable. The ground underneath her body didn't feel any better as she shifted to try and push herself up. As she got to a seated position she blinked in the darkness and rubbed the aching spot on the back of her head. She felt discombobulated in the very dim light surrounding her and she looked around, trying to figure out where she was.

She was trying to remember what had happened when she heard a groan break through the silence from a few feet away from her. Fred! She cursed herself, having forgotten about him in her confusion. She stumbled up to her feet and winced at a new pain in her ankle. Her head was clearing and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out the form of Fred on the ground and walked carefully towards him. When she got to him she saw that he was laying on the ground on his back. He wasn't completely awake and she knelt down next to him, gently shaking his shoulder.

When he didn't wake she quickly surveyed his body and inhaled sharply when her gaze rested on his leg. In the dim light she could see the whiteness of the bone poking through the skin of his lower leg, the pants around it were stained dark red with blood. She took deep breaths as nausea and panic washed over her.

"Fred!" She said, turning her focus back to waking him. She cupped his face in her hands, "Please, you have to wake up."

He stirred slightly and she felt tears slip down her cheeks, her fear gripping her. "Fred, please." Her voice broke slightly as she stroked his forehead and cheek.

His eyes shifted slightly under his lids as her voice broke through to him. He felt her hands stroking at his face and turned into them as he would on any normal day. As he gradually became more aware, he felt the hardness beneath him instead of the soft mattress he had been expecting. He opened his eyes into the darkness and shifted slightly, feeling a searing pain from his leg that brought him fully aware.

He cried out at the pain and pushed himself up, almost hitting Hermione in the process. She fell backwards onto her backside at his sudden movement. She scrambling up again and gripped his arm as she heard him start to hyperventilate in pain. Her heart pounded in her chest as she knew he needed to calm down.

Taking his face in her hands she forced him to look at her. "Fred, you need to breath. Try to relax." She gripped his face tightly and tried to keep her voice calm.

It was the first time he had really seen her since waking up. The pain still clouded his vision but he tried to focus on her face and take deep breaths at her command. He tried to think about what was happening, remembering the street and the two people around her, but she was here, had that even happened? Her face swam in his vision but he blinked again and it cleared.

"Hermione." His pain was pushed to the back of his mind as he saw the tears tracks on her cheeks. "What is going on? Are you alright?"

She let out a small sob and loosed her grip on him as he spoke to her. "I don't know. Fred, your leg, it's broken."

He refused to look down at the limb and grimaced as he tried to push himself into a more comfortable position. "Yeah, I noticed. What the hell happened?"

She shook her head, not being able to provide him with an answer. "I don't know." She said blankly as she looked around them.

"What do you mean?" He asked confused as he watched her, but then remembered his 'dream'. He was almost afraid to think about the possibility, "The people in the street? That was real?"

When she didn't immediately respond he clenched his jaw and reached over to put his hand on her arm, "Are you alright?" He asked, remembering his fear at seeing the people who had appeared next to her.

She nodded and brought her eyes back to him. "Yeah. I think so. I don't remember exactly what happened, just seeing you outside of the shop. Then we're here." She wasn't sure exactly where here was. It almost looked like a cave from the small amount of light that was coming in. The rocks below them were damp against her hands and she couldn't tell exactly where the walls around them ended. She remembered suddenly what Ron had told her in his hospital room about where he and Cho were taken; it was dark and damp.

She turned back to Fred, her attention going back to his leg. She knew what needed to be done to avoid further damage to the limb. "Fred." She waited until he looked at her, knowing that she needed his full attention for this.

"I need to set your leg." She said, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible. "But I don't have my wand."

He looked at her and saw the fear in her eyes, understanding the implied meaning behind her statement. He hasn't seen the extent of his injury but the shooting pain gave him an inclination. He trusted her, both as the woman he loved and as a healer so he gritted his teeth and gave her a short nod, knowing that she would never attempt anything she didn't know how to do.

She leaned forward with a shaky breath and kissed his forehead before moving to the end of his legs to focus on the task that had to be done. She took off the thin sweater that she had been wearing over her tank top and tied it as tight as she could above the break. Positioning herself near his foot, she took a moment to look up at him. He was watching her carefully, focusing on her face and not her hands. Her own skin was chilled in the cool air but she could see beads of sweat glinting on Fred's face.

Her calm resolve broke as she looked at him; she wasn't sure she could do this. "Fred, I'm so sorry."

He looked up at her from his concentration, having focused all his energy in the anticipation of what was going to happen. "No, love. None of this is your fault." He gritted his teeth and nodded at her. "I trust you. Just do it."

Her heart broke at his words and she took a deep breath before turning her focus back to her patient. Gripped his ankle tightly she pulled, watching carefully as the white bone disappeared back under his skin. When she finished setting the leg, she looked back to Fred's face to find him pale with tears shining in his eyes. She quickly assessed the wound for excessive bleeding before sliding the sweater she had wrapped around his leg lower earlier down to cover the wound. She felt for the pulse at his ankle and breathed a sigh of relief to find that it was bounding and strong.

She moved back up towards his head, "Take some deep breaths." She said as she stroked his cheek again, bringing his attention back to her.

He drew in a deep breath and felt faint. "I think I need to lay down."

She moved immediately at his words and sat behind him, letting him rest back against her. She stroked his hair away from his face as he closed his eyes and took slow breaths. He focused on the ministrations of her hands; anything to take away from the burning pain in his leg. What he wouldn't give for a whiskey right now.

They sat there in the silence like this for several minutes, knowing that they weren't safe by any means. As Fred rested she tried to think of a logical way out of this, there was always something she could do. As nothing came to her she clenched her jaw in frustration and wiped at the tears forming in her eyes. She wished more than anything that they hadn't gotten out of bed this morning.

She suddenly remembered exactly why they had gotten up this morning. The events prior to the attack flooded back to her and her heart raced in her chest. She needed to tell him. If it was the last thing she did, she needed to tell him.

"Fred." She said shakily, shifting underneath him. His breathing had become more even but there were still lines of pain evident on his forehead. He opened his eyes to look up at her and she tried to wipe away the dampness on her cheeks. "Fred, this morning I went to the hospital."

He furrowed his brows in concern, "Are you okay? Is there something wrong?" He thought about her being sick this morning and searched her face.

She shook her head quickly and bit her lip, "No, it's nothing like that. I..It's just that.." She faltered in her speech and took a deep breath to steady herself, "Fred, I'm pregnant."

It wasn't the way she wanted to tell him. They were supposed to be at his shop, laughing and freaking out together about this new development. After the potion had made her abdomen glow at the hospital she let herself come to terms with the news and all she could think about was getting to him. He was going to be so excited about the baby which made her even more excited to tell him. They were supposed to be celebrating together in the safety of the life they had built together.

"What did you say?" Fred asked carefully as he pushing up off of her lap so he could sit and face her. He wasn't sure he had heard her correctly and his heart raced at the possibility of what she might have said.

She swallowed and took a deep breath before repeating herself, trying to find the same resolve as she did before. "I'm pregnant. I found out earlier today at the hospital and was coming to tell you when…"

"You're pregnant." He breathed out, interrupting her. She nodded as he broke out in a grin and reached for her, wrapping his arms about her as she started crying again. He held her tightly against him, thinking about what she had just said. He could feel her shaking against him and he pulled back to look at her tear stained face.

"We're going to have a baby." He said excitedly as he brushed the new tears away. She smiled slightly and nodded, gripping his forearms tightly.

Just as he was about to speak again, small orbs of bright white light sparked alive in the air above them. Both captives squinted and blinked in the offensive, sudden brightness before looking around. The cavern was just what one would expect from a cave, the space they were in was about ten feet tall and the uneven rocky bottom was glistening with water. Fred gripped Hermione's arm as two people appeared a few feet from them. They were both wearing the now familiar black cloak and mask that they had become familiar with over the past two years.

"Oh, how sweet." A shrill voice came from behind the mask of the shorter one as the new comers found the couple sitting together. "Lovely that you get to experience this together."

The taller one chuckled deeply. "Hope this redhead is as fun as the last one." He said to his companion.

"What do you want with us?" Hermione asked, trying to keep the fear from her voice. Fred gripped her arm tighter in warning but she couldn't keep quiet.

"No love, it's what do we want with you. Ginger here was just a happy coincidence, a nice play thing to keep us occupied. You're the one he wants."

Her heart raced at this and she glanced at Fred whose jaw was clenched tightly with anger. She startled as the figures advanced on them and kicked out when they grabbed her arms, hauling her to her feet.

"No! Leave her!" Fred yelled from his seat on the ground as the two grabbed Hermione. He tried to hold tight to her but she was pulled out of his reach, bumping his injured leg as they went. He grunted in pain but held his focus on her. Hermione was struggling as the taller one held her arms behind her back and she tried to dig her nails into whatever she could reach. The shorter one stepped forward and backhanded her across the face causing her to lose her footing and stumble backwards against the person holding her.

"Don't you fucking touch her." Fred yelled, rage filling his voice at the scene in front of him. Hermione felt dazed after the blow but tried to focus on his face, feeling her own fear rush through her body. This couldn't be happening; this was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. Her thoughts flitted to the tiny life growing inside her and she wanted to scream.

Her captor hauled her upright again, causing a sharp pain in her shoulder with the jerking motion. "All right lovely, we've got places to be." His voice was right in her ear and she cringed at the feel of his breath on her neck.

The shorter one turned their attention back to Fred and smirked at him underneath their mask. "Don't worry, she'll be back in no time. Can't promise she'll be in one piece though." She laughed shrilly as Hermione and the man holding her disappeared form the cave. When the other one apparated away and the lights disappeared, Fred was left staring into empty darkness.