Fred had remained stoically silent as they walked back to their hotel, despite tipsy Hemrione's attempts to get him to open up and tall to her, barely uttering a "goodnight" to her as they parted ways on the top floor.

Now it was almost an hour later and Fred was glaring a hole in the ceiling above his bed.

Knock Knock

A gentle rapping on the door drew him from his grumpy thoughts and he begrudgingly dragged himself over to open the hotel room door to find:

"Mione?" He asked in surprise "What are you doing up?"

"I couldn't sleep" she shrugged "do you want to hang out on my balcony for a little bit?"

Fred followed her with a nod and a painful gulp as he took in what she was wearing. Silk pajama shorts and strappy top were peaking out of the gap in her untied summer dressing gown as she climbed out onto the balcony.

Hermione closed her eyes and took in the scents of roses and hot terracotta roof tiles drifting up from below, she allowed the distant orchestra of late night traffic and muggle street musicians to surround her. Opening her eyes slowly she admired the mismatched rooftops of wizarding and muggle Paris sprawling out in front of her and the glittering, iconic Eiffel Tower peaking out above them.

"If you could be anywhere right now, where would it be?" Fred asked softly as he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and held her tightly to him.

"Here." She breathed.

After a moment of quiet reverie she asked a question in return.

"If you could be doing anything right now, what would it be?" She asked.

Her question was greeted with silence so a few minutes later she dragged her gaze from the captivating view before her to find that Fred was staring captivated at her. His eyes flickering between hers and occasionally darting down to her lips, his dusky pink tongue darting out to wet his own.

"So Julian was… um…" Fred coughed, breaking the worst of the tension and tearing his eyes painfully from her rosy lips, and attempted to steer the conversation to the one he had been having in his head for the past hour.

"He was nice I guess, but I don't think I would want anything more than a friendship with him." Hermione mused as she gazed up at the star studded sky "I hate his family already and he wasn't such a good kisser."

The cheeky smile she shot him with her last words broke the last of the tension that had become brittle inside Fred and a loud laugh erupted from his chest, rumbling through her back which it was pressed against and eliciting a giggle from her as well.

"No? So being a good kisser is important for you then?" Fred asked cheekily, with another suggestive eye flick from her eyes to her lips.

"Of course!" Hermione exclaimed, mirroring the pattern of his gaze and allowing him to draw a little closer before turning away from Fred's roguish grin to look back out at starlit Paris. "But it's not worth risking a friendship, or an engagement, over."

Fred and his crushed heart soon called it a night and he bid her goodnight with a hug at the door.

His head fell forward and forehead came to rest against the closed hotel room door as he desperately wished things were different.

"If only…" Fred muttered to himself as a silent tear ran down his freckled cheek.

...

The next morning was spent sharing crepes at a nearby cafe after checking out of the hotel and then exploring everything that the Louvre had to offer. Both Hermione and Fred became enthralled with all the art they found there and only just made it in time for their portkey home, with the samples sealed inside a specially made, and extortionately expensive, single use magic resistant box.

The couple spent the next week and a half actively avoiding each other until George cornered Fred after he had missed both Sunday family dinners since their Paris trip.

"Right." He said, locking the apartment door after himself and sealing the floo to prevent his twin's escape. "What the hell happened in France? I asked Hermione and she doesn't have a clue why you've not been at family dinner."

"I just can't be around her at the moment, okay?" Fred replied and took another swig from his mug of Phoenix Tears rum.

"Why the hell not!?" George bellowed in frustration.

His question was met with stony silence.

"Look did you fall out or something? Did she do something that means you're thoroughly repulsed by her?"

George's questions were met with a scoff this time.

"Talk to me Forgie." George pleaded "Please. I need to know, it's killing me seeing you like this."

"She doesn't want me." Fred muttered defeatedly

"Who? Hermione? What do you mean?" George was sure what Fred meant having watched his twin pine over the brunette bookworm for years but he needed Fred to say it out loud and start to process what he felt.

"Of course Hermione, there's no one else." Hot, burning tears welled in Fred's eyes and slowly dripped from his downcast eyelashes into his rum. "There's never been anyone else and there never will be."

"Then ask her to marry you!" George implored "I'm a hundred percent sure she would say yes in an instant!"

"No!" Fred snapped, jumping to his feat and angrily throwing the mug across the room where it shattered against the fireplace "Then I would be married to someone who doesn't love me back and it would be torturous because I love her with every single part of me more than I can bear. It hurts how much I love her and eventually she'd fall in love with someone else and I'd have to watch from the sidelines and let her go because of course I would let her go, she deserves true love in both directions and it would be heart wrenching to be without her. I would be even more of a mess than I am now but knowing how incredibly kind she is then she probably wouldn't go with him anyway when she saw how lonely I was, and she would see it no matter how hard I tried to hide it, because she'd feel like she had to stay with me anyway because she promised in our vows and then I'd watch her grow sad and empty and lonely herself and it would kill me to be the reason why and she would inwardly resent me even if she swore she didn't and she'd become more cold and distant and any last strings of friendship we had left after all the strain we'd already suffered would snap and we would just be like two strangers who were forced to live together with coldness and dislike and bitterness and distance growing more and more between us like bindweed growing up to strangle every good thing left growing so that no fruit or crops could survive and I love her. I love her Georgie and I'll never stop and I can not do that to her…"

"So you finally admit that you love her?"

"Of course I love her you idiot! it's torturous and painful and it rips me apart every time we part… and… Georgie… I can't do this anymore… I… can't..."

George caught his collapsing, crying twin in his arms and held him close as he wept.