Authors Note:

In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the FremioneFairytales collection.

Hello this story was written for the Princess and the Fool: A Fremione Fanatics Fairytale Fest 2022.

The claim I chose was: A modern fairy tale involving mythical beasts, romance and a spell gone wrong that turned out well in the end.

I had a lot of fun writing this one, I hope you guys enjoy reading it. 😀

(See the end of the work for more notes.)


"It is only the end if you give up" - Elfman Strauss


Overwhelmed and consumed by an overriding pain; Hermione stumbled her way out of the Great Hall, ignoring the calls of her name from her worried friends. She was broken, irreparable, a shell of the person she had been eight hours ago when all this had started.

Eight hours ago she'd been stood in the Room of Requirements when he'd stepped through Arianna's portrait, his arms encasing her as he lent down and claimed her lips in a fiery kiss; a kiss filled with love, pain, desire and heartache, they fuelled the kiss with every emotion they had felt during the many months they had been separated; her on the run tracking down Horcruxes while he was in hiding running a pirate radio station to get the real news out into the public, not the version of events Voldemort wanted the public to hear.

"I've missed you Mi, I love you so much," he'd whispered as he'd pulled her into a bone clenching embrace.

"I love you Freddie," she'd cried against his chest, clinging to him, her emotions seeping out of her as she settled into the safety of his arms, each of them murmuring declarations of love and hope, making tentative plans for a life together once this night was through, once they succeeded in righting the wrongs of the world.

Eight hours, not even a half a day since that moment in the Room of Requirements and her world had flipped on its axis. Eight hours had passed, and it had changed her world forever, broken her beyond compare. Eight hours ago she'd been in the arms of the man she loved, now he lay dead in the Great Hall, the ghost of his last laugh still etched onto his handsome face, his hazel eyes dull and lifeless. She'd watched the wall crumble atop of him, unable to do anything to save him and her heart had shattered in two.

She'd faced a lot of things in her eighteen years of life; the death of her beloved granny, the potentially permanent obliviations of her parents, torture at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange but a life without Fred Weasley in it, she couldn't imagine it, couldn't comprehend it, it was wrong, so wrong.

She didn't want to live in a world without his light, without his soul. She'd spent the remainder of the battle in a haze, half hoping a stray spell would hit her, reuniting her with her lover but her hopes had been in vain, Voldemort had fallen, the remaining Death Eaters fleeing or been apprehended by Order members and Aurors and yet she still lived. She now lived alone in a world without him; the man that she'd loved more than life itself. Why did it have to be him, Fred who made her laugh and smile, Fred who had been the greatest, so full of life, so rambunctious and loved, why him, why did her Freddie have to die. Why not her, Hermione wasn't special in the way that he was, she was studious, sometimes pretentious, boring in comparison to Fred. Yet she lived while his body grew cold, laid out with the other victims of this war, dead at the age of twenty, it wasn't fair, he was so young, had his whole life to live and now he was gone, he was dead.

Poor George had been inconsolable, collapsing atop of his twin, his other half, clinging to him, his cries piercing the souls of all who heard him. Hermione hadn't been able to approach them, to hold onto the man she loved, she couldn't, wouldn't hold his icy flesh, she'd stumbled from the hall dazed, pained, heartbroken, ignoring Harry and the others who called after her, wanting to console her, to hold her. Hermione didn't want them, meaningless words of sorrow, platitudes of shared grief and commiserations. Nothing they could say would bring him back and fix the chasm that was her broken shattered heart.

Never again would Freddie tell a joke and make her laugh, never again would he talk to her in the early hours of the morning, playing with her curls as they laid naked in each other's arms. He wouldn't kiss her or read with her in front of a fire. He wouldn't fetch her treats and hot water bottles when she was on her period or hold her hand as he took her on whirlwind dates, each one just as crazy and wonderful as he was. Fred wouldn't carry out pranks and invent products for his store, his eyes alight with passion as he told her about each and every one of them excitedly. He wouldn't marry her, the magical ring on her finger that had been warm, linking them together from the moment he'd placed it on her finger the previous year now icy cold, his magic no longer thrumming through it, leached from the silver band the moment his soul had passed over to another plane. He was gone, dead and there would be no bringing him back, no salvation for her. A widow before even getting married that's what she was, a broken, hollow widow. No magic could bring back the dead.

"Accio time turner," she called desperately, she couldn't bring him back but perhaps she could prevent it from happening in the first place, stop him from been under the wall when it fell. It took a few minutes for the golden hourglass she'd worn during her third year at Hogwarts to come flying through the halls, landing in her outstretched palm, the broken glass digging into her skin, the golden sands gone from the broken necklace.

"NO," she screamed collapsing to her knees, tears streaming down her face as she clenched her hand around the broken device, uncaring that it sliced into her skin, blood pouring from the glass shards imbedding into her palm.

The time turner had been her last hope, but it, like many of the things within the castle had been destroyed that night. Fred Weasley was dead and there was nothing she could do about it. Hermione cried, as she lay among the grime and rubble of the destroyed corridor she was in, the same corridor where the love of her life had died, mere hours before. Hermione allowed the grief to claim her, cold and bitter, all consuming, her body quaking with torment as she grieved for the loss of her lover and the life, they'd never be able to live together.

Hermione was unsure of the passing of time; it could have been minutes or hours that had passed when she was startled by a sound. In the distance, music had begun to play; a harp if she wasn't mistaken, melodic and haunting, calling her to follow its chilling sound, the walls of the castle vibrating with each strum of its chords. Hermione wiped at her eyes, stumbling to her feet, following the sound, like a child following the piped piper, letting the music lead her into the unknown.