A/N: This is a work of fiction using the characters from Harry Potter that are trademarked by J.K. Rowling.
Characters/Pairings: Harry Potter, Hermione (Platonic)
Warnings: Not for HarryGinny fans. They do not end up together. Don't like it, don't read it.
Harry stood in a daze. He absently watched the tailor in the mirror as he scurried around him. Harry felt numb. Everything was wrong. He should be a nervous but excited mess. A smile should be permanently plastered on his face, but it wasn't; his face was oddly blank, lacking any emotion.
It was a beautiful summer day. The sun shined in the sky, not a cloud in sight, and for June the air was hot but not humid. A perfect summer day, the first in what looked to be a perfect week, but Harry was numb to it all.
His friends sat to his right and watched him warily. They both knew something was off with Harry, but both put it down to nerves. They had been planning the wedding since last summer and it was only dawning on him, a year later, the inherit wrongness that settled in his gut.
"What am I doing?" Harry asked himself. He didn't realize that he had spoken aloud and broke the silence that blanketed the room.
"What do ya mean, mate? You're getting your final fitting" Ron answered, clearly confused by the randomness of the question.
"An after this Ginny wants to meet at the hall to finalize the menu" Hermione added the next part of their journey for the day.
At the mention of Ginny, his bride to be, finally Harry started to feel something, but it wasn't happiness. No, it was panic. His mind shifted quickly through images of his possible future. Married at nineteen. Father at twenty. Working full time at a dead-end job that he didn't even want in the first place.
He could picture it clearly. He would leave early in the morning, come home late at night. He would barely see his kids and wife. They would fight and come to resent one another. There was no divorce in the Magical Society, so Harry would be trapped in an angry, loveless marriage with only the children keeping them civil.
As his thoughts spiralled out of control Harry's breathing got faster and faster as he descended into a full-blown panic attack. Sweat broke out across his brown and the back of his neck. Heat raced up his spine and made him feel uncomfortable hot. His stomach churched, and Harry swore he could hear the angry gurgle echo in the room.
"Oh God" He whispered, horrified at the future his mind had produced, "I can't breathe…Is it hot in here?" He frantically pulled at his tied in an attempt to loosen it.
"Alright Harry" Hermione said in a soft, soothing tone, "it's gonna be alright" she approached her friend as If he were a wild animal and based off his wide, frantic eyes that moved wildly around the room she wasn't that far off the mark.
"Get this thing off me!" Harry yelled and clawed, ineffectually, at his neck.
"Mate, get a hold of yourself" Ron hissed at his crazed friend, annoyed and embarrassed, that Harry was making a scene.
"Ron!" Hermione snapped at the insensitive red-head, "Go get us some drinks" she ordered. She needed the notoriously hot-headed Weasley out of the area. She had a bad feeling deep in her gut that things were about to get extremely complicated.
Ron groaned but pushed himself up off the couch and left to run his errand and when Hermione turned back around she froze in shock when Harry was no longer on the pedestal. The only relief was that she hadn't heard the 'crack' of apparition so at least Harry was still here, somewhere.
"Harry?" She called out hesitantly and received a small response of "In here" from the direction of the dressing room.
Even though Hermione knew Harry hadn't apparated away from the tailor she was also relieved that he hadn't just walked out the back door as well. She approached the dressing room and knocked on the door, "Can I come in?" she asked.
"Yeah" Harry said softly.
Hermione pushed open the door just enough to squeeze inside. She saw that Harry had succeed in getting out of the tuxedo and now sat in the corner, in his boxers and undershirt, with his elbows on his knees and his head cradled in his hands.
Hermione sat down beside her best friend and asked, "What's going on Harry? I know you haven't been that excited or involved in the planning, but I didn't expect this level or panic."
Harry looked at his best friend, his sister, with tears in his eyes, "I don't know what I'm doing. I let the pressure influence me and my decisions. This isn't how I saw my life going Hermione. I'm only nineteen. I'm too young to get married. Hell, I don't even know who I am. My whole life has been about war and death. I should be able to wander the globe if I want but instead I've been pigeonholed into a job I don't want and a marriage I'm not ready for. This isn't fair to Ginny…or me. What am I going to do?" He asked before breaking into soft sobs.
Hermione wrapped her arms around Harry and held him tight as he cried. She offered him whatever comfort she could. They stayed like that until they both heard Ron come back. Harry pulled himself together and Hermione just stared at him for a second, "I don't know what the right answer is but I do know that you have to talk to Ginny. Just know that whatever happens I'm always there for you. I've always got your back" Hermione declared fiercely.
Harry gave her a grateful look and took a shuddering breath to calm himself before he apparated out of the changing room. Hermione was right, as always, he needed to see Ginny.
Hermione was left alone in the dressing room, left to tell Ron that they were leaving, and she wondered absently if Harry even realized that he hadn't gotten dressed before he left.
The conversation with Ginny went about as well as Harry expected. There was an abundance of yelling, tears, and flying objects. IN the end the wedding was called off and their relationship ended.
Harry and Ginny's relationship wasn't the only relationship that suffered. Harry's ties with the Weasley family were all but severed. The only two that still spoke with Harry were George and Bill. George understood that life was too short to settle for something that you didn't want with you entire being and Bill didn't want Harry or Ginny to be in a marriage that wasn't filled with an all-encompassing love.
Harry quit his job and spent the rest of the summer travelling around the world. He learnt about all the different magic societies and cultures before he settled back down and began to take his masteries in transfiguration and charms.
Ginny eventually got over her devastation and even began writing to Harry. She was not anywhere near ready to be friend with her first love, but she also realized that if she had forced the marriage it would have ended terribly for all involved. She didn't want to be with someone that didn't love her with the same intensity as she loved them.
Harry did eventually settle down and he married a Canadian witch that he had met on his yearly summer travels and they had four children together. His friendship with Ron never recovered but his relationship with Hermione was only strengthened as the years when on with Harry and Hermione being the godparents to each others' children.
Their lives had changed a lot since they were in school. People came and went but Hermione and Harry's relationship always remained.
Challenge:
Every king of Pairing Competition, Prompt: Platonic
The FRIENDS Competition - Phoebe Challenge, Prompt: Season 1, Episode 1 – Write about someone getting cold feet
Can you make it to the end? Round 15, Prompt: NOTP – Summer