AN: I have no idea how long this one will be honestly. It will be a Fremione fic, and it will be centered wholly on romance. Oh yeah. Pure Romance. With a splash of angst. Just how I like it.
DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything
Prologue: His Eyes
Hermione's dreams came in flashes like a broken roll of film. After every incoherent flash the darkness would return, encroaching on the edges of her vision.
She couldn't tell if she was dreaming, or if it was real, but what unsettled her was that every flash seemed to be centered around only one thing.
Fred Weasley.
Some were no longer than a second. Just his eyes, purple and orange robes, a calla lily, his hands, a wax seal.
The longer ones had things like his laugh, him shoving an entire cookie in his mouth, an explosion and ash covered face, him pulling her trunk up unrecognizable stairs, a hand pulling her to dance, spinning robes, kisses on her wrist, blood dripping down a pale freckled temple.
Things that had so sense. No reason. It made her mind hurt nearly as much as the ache in her torso.
Her torso.
Her eyes flew open and the first thing she saw...
It was his eyes.
Identical to the flashes that had played on repeat for the indeterminable amount of time. Blinking at the same time. Opened the same amount. She'd seen it before.
Big and blue and staring at her like she had just solved the world's greatest mystery just by rejoining the conscious world.
"Mione!"
She flinched at the loud intrusion into her previously silent world and those eyes turned apologetic.
"Sorry about that. Got excited, I did. You've been out a long time, sleeping beauty."
Hermione just blinked up at him in confusion. His eyes looked so different than she remembered. Like there was more there than she could see, more than she'd ever looked for. She felt the pad of a pointer finger push against her cheek and come back in between their two faces, shining with her tears.
"Why are you crying, Mione? Does it hurt?"
She hadn't even known she was crying. Hermione watched in fascination as he looked like he, himself was in pain. She opened her mouth, but snapped it shut again when she heard pounding footsteps on creaky wooden floors.
"Fred! Give her some space!" Fred gave her one last look before pulling away completely.
"Sorry, mum. Try to keep it down, yeah? Her brain is mushy."
Hermione tried to protest, but all that came out were a few coughs.
"Oh, dear. Fred, get her a glass of water!"
Hermione felt hands then on her back, pulling her up before resting her against fluffed pillows.
To her left was Ginny and to her right, Molly. Everything ached.
Fred returned then, and when he saw her eyes following him, he gave her one of his grins.
Molly took the glass from him, and Hermione lifted her hands to take it. Molly batted her hands away and held the glass to Hermione's lips herself.
Hermione couldn't even find it in herself to be angry at her show of weakness because the moment the cold liquid touched her throat it was like instant relief.
A few gulps later, Molly pulled the glass away, and Hermione managed to croak out only part of a question.
"What hap…" she started coughing again and Molly clucked her tongue.
"You've been sustained with nutrients potions, so it's going to take a while to get up to normal speed again, dear."
Hermione frowned, and Molly stepped towards the doorway.
"I'm going to go floo for Madame Pomfrey," she said strongly. She gave Fred and Ginny insistent looks before bustling out of the door. It was only after that, that Hermione's eyes darted around, and she realized that she wasn't in the Hospital Wing. She appeared to be in her and Ginny's room at the Burrow which only further confused her.
Where she normally would've turned to Ginny for answers, instead she looked to Fred.
He was studying her with the most serious expression she'd ever seen on his face.
"What happened?" She tried again. It came out like a croak, but it was significantly better.
The last thing she remembered was going to the Ministry at Harry's insistence. The Hall of Prophecies. Dolohov.
Fred cleared his throat, and her eyes snapped back up to him.
"You were cursed by Dolohov. It was one of his own personal curses. They didn't know what it was, so your recovery took a little longer than expected."
Her eyebrows furrowed, and she felt Ginny take her hand beside her, "You would've died if you hadn't silenced him, Hermione."
She watched in horror as the fiery red-head's eyes filled with tears. She shook her head at her and looked away again. "I'm alive," she said plainly. She cleared her throat and asked, "Everyone else?" The silence was deafening following that.
"Hermione… Sirius…"
Hermione's eyes widened. "What?" She urged.
"He's dead, Hermione. Bellatrix sent him through the Veil."
Hermione lifted her weak and unoccupied hand and pushed against her forehead. Her head was pounding.
"Harry?" She asked nervously.
"I don't know. He's at the Dursley's."
Hermione felt like her heart was burning, so she moved her hand from her head to her chest. The small amount of pressure caused a tremor of pain to wrack her body, and suddenly her second hand was taken up by Fred's much larger one.
"Careful there, Mione."
Hermione warily moved her eyes to look down at her torso. She was wearing some kind of sleep t-shirt, so, careful of her audience, she removed her hand from Ginny's to lift her shirt and look at her chest.
Even in the shadows, she could see a dark purple, angry scar cutting across her upper body from her hip to her collarbone.
Angry tears sprang to her eyes, so she squeezed them shut.
"Is it permanent?"
"Fraid so," Ginny whispered.
Hermione wiped at her eyes in frustration and croaked out, "I'm so selfish. Harry lost his godfather, and I'm crying about a stupid scar!"
Fred gave her a wan smile. "It's not selfish. It's normal. A bit out of character for you, but normal."
Ginny smirked at her. "I think it's badass."
Hermione laughed humorlessly and said, "Have you actually seen it?"
Ginny's smirk remained when she said, "Who do you think changed all the bandages?"
Hermione smiled genuinely then, but it dropped after only a second. "How long?"
If she was here that meant that term had ended, so now there was really no telling how long it had been.
"You were asleep for nineteen days, sleeping beauty."
This time she was of right enough mind to scowl at him for the pet name.
Molly appeared again then with Pomfrey in tow, and everyone was pushed out of the room for her to take potions.
When she fell back into sleep it was the same thing over and over again. Alternating flashes of Fred Weasley and darkness.
His eyes, purple and orange robes, a calla lily, his hands, a wax seal. His laugh, him shoving an entire cookie in his mouth, an explosion and ash covered face, him pulling her trunk up unrecognizable stairs, a hand pulling her to dance, spinning robes, kisses on her wrist, blood dripping down a pale freckled temple.
The exact same.
His eyes had been the exact same.
His mother had set up an informal time-sheet for keeping watch over Hermione for the nineteen days she'd slept fitfully in both the Hospital Wing and the Burrow.
Ron had made a big fuss at first about him deserving the honor, but it became clear after just the first few hours that he was neither patient enough nor dedicated.
It just so happened that Fred was both.
Him and George were working to get their shop running by the end of summer, but the whole Department of Mysteries spectacle had changed things. Primarily, Fred's priorities.
It was a well-known fact between the twins that Hermione Granger was a total dime.
She was a diamond in the rough just waiting for someone to notice how much she shined, and boy, had they noticed.
George's was more of a passing fancy, but Fred's ended up being much deeper, seeing as he couldn't convince himself to sign up for less than the majority of the watching Hermione shifts.
Ron was suspicious. Ginny was surprisingly knowing. Mum was confused but pleased. Dad was oblivious. Georgie, though, Georgie was amused.
All of it paid off when she shifted in her sleep and opened her large brown eyes to him on the nineteenth day.
He could tell something was different. There was something in the way she looked at him that made him think that maybe she saw him how he saw her, but then she'd started to cry. He'd had to shake himself from his wishful thinking.
Once he'd left the room after Pomfrey arrived, he quickly flooed to the flat above their shop.
He ran down to where he knew George and Lee were and burst through into the small lab in the back.
"Georgie, a miracle has occurred!"
George glanced up from where he was working and his face broke out into a huge grin.
"Our little Hermione, is awake then?"
"Oh she's awake." Fred collapsed on what he'd deemed 'his chair' and dropped his feet on top of the table in front of him. "She's awake, and I held her hand, and she's as beautiful as ever. A little sleeping beauty she is."
Lee shook his head. "Did she hold your hand willingly, Fred?"
He thought about her for a moment before shrugging. "Kind of."
George just laughed and slapped him on the back. "You know, I bet she'd be mighty impressed with the shop if we got it open."
Fred got a semi-maniacal look in his eye. "I think you're onto something, Georgie."