"Fred," she gasped against his mouth, lips parting slightly as she breathed him in, tasted him on her tongue. Her arms rose, wrapping around his neck as she lifted onto her tiptoes. As warm as Fred could be, as safe as he made her feel, there was nothing soft about this. He didn't kiss her, he consumed her. The arm around her waist pulled tighter and his other hand knotted in the hair at the base of her neck.

This went on for moments, or perhaps hours, until in one fluid motion he lifted her, and her knees hitched around his hips, pressing the most intimate parts of them together. She moaned, feeling him respond beneath her. Before she processed what was happening, he turned on the spot and they were no longer on the roof, ensconced in a fading warming charm, but in his dark bedroom. It was so skillfully done, she barely felt the uncomfortable squeezing sensation of apparation.

He removed his hand from her hair to wandlessly light a pair of candles on the bedside table and then, without preamble, he dropped her on her back onto the mattress. He paused then, kneeling between her legs, and looked at her. Good Godric, the way he looked at her…

He placed one hand on the inside of her upper right thigh, her hips twitching upward in response, before brushing his fingertips down the inseam of her jeans and unzipping her boot. He tossed it to the side along with her sock and repeated the process with the other leg. She met his eyes and sat up as she reached shaking hands to the hem of her blouse and pulled it up and over her head, discarding it and falling back in front of him, bare except for her trousers. Her nipples pebbled against the air and Fred let out a ragged breath as he gazed down at her.

He quickly divested himself of his own jumper and lowered his mouth to her chest. Expecting him to go for her breasts, she gasped in surprise when he placed his lips gently over the scar that ran from her left hip up to her right shoulder. It always made her self-conscious the first time she was with a new partner and the fact that kissing it was the first thing he'd done made her want to cry. Because of course he knew; even without telling him, without even hinting at it, he somehow knew.

He traced his mouth along the ridge of scar tissue before she placed a hand lightly under his jaw and pulled him back up to her. This kiss was much less violent than the one on the roof, less primal, but not in any way lacking heat.

His forearms braced on either side of her and Hermione slipped a hand between them, popping the button on his trousers open. Fred pulled back and looked at her in question and she nodded once before lunging forward and capturing his mouth again. He took one hand and undid the button on her jeans, tugging them down and taking her knickers with them. She tried her best to reach around and do the same to him, thankful when he assisted.

And then they were naked, and the friction of it, his skin against hers, made her head spin. She clung to his broad shoulders, feeling muscles stretch and pull beneath her palms, not noticing when he lowered a hand again to circle her clit, catching her off guard and making her gasp. He flicked his fingers back and forth rapidly, pushing her closer and closer to an inevitable brink.

"Please," she whispered after several minutes, and he dropped his head to the hollow of her throat, sucking and biting in a tantalizing rhythm that had her attempting to press her thighs together to relieve the building pressure. When she was nearly ready to come, toes curling and breath coming in gasps, he backed off. She was about to protest when he suddenly pushed inside her and every thought in her head vanished.

Everything was Fred. His taste, his touch, his smell, the sound of him… she closed her eyes and she swore it was like looking into the sun, feeling the heat on her eyelids; she had been with men before, but she had never burned, not like this.

After an excruciating moment while they both adjusted to the new sensation, chests rising and falling, he began to move and she dug her nails into his shoulders where they desperately sought purchase. He lifted his lips from her neck and slowed, pulling back to look in her eyes and raising a hand to brush a stray curl away from her forehead.

In that moment, looking at him, Hermione's heart simultaneously broke and came together all at once. Because if she couldn't have him, if there wasn't a future for them, at least she had this. Tonight, she was his and he was hers and if that was all they would be, perhaps in this one, infinite moment, that could be enough.

Fred kissed her gently then, their lips melting into one another as he picked up the pace, guiding himself in and out of her. Sooner than before, she was back at the precipice. She rolled her hips up to meet him, squeezing, and it sent them both tumbling over the edge. He groaned and his fingers dug into her thigh so hard, she was sure there would be bruises. Good.

They were both breathing heavily when she came back to herself. He shifted to the side but was still laying across her chest, carefully distributing his weight so as not to crush her. As she watched the snow fall outside the window, she lightly threaded her fingers through his hair, coppery strands reflecting the flickering candlelight.

Cheek resting out of sight against her chest, Fred smiled in long-sought contentment.

Head laid back against the pillows, Hermione tried not to cry.

oOoOoOo

It was perhaps one in the morning when she awoke. The snow was still falling outside and Fred was sleeping soundly beside her, having rolled over and drawn the covers up to his waist.

Oh God, what had she done? There was no world in which Fred woke up in the morning and didn't in some way regret this. The previous night aside, he had clearly been keeping her at arm's length since she told him about Charlotte and now… and oh God, Verity. He had left her alone at the party.

Hermione began to panic, breathing hard as her fight or flight instincts kicked in. She needed to get out of there. She'd ruined everything, and it was going to cost her her best friend, and who knew what else. She silently flipped the blanket off herself and, quietly as she could, quickly pulled on her trousers and blouse, scooping her boots and wand off the floor.

She gave his sleeping form one last look before she turned on her heel and made for the fireplace in the living room. She wasn't crying anymore, and it wasn't sadness she was feeling. It was numbness. Something beyond simple grief. Because she loved Fred.

She could lie to herself, and she could joke, and she could call him her friend, but her heart wanted more, needed more. And she wouldn't do that to him. He deserved better than what she had to offer.

She stepped barefoot into the floo, holding her boots and wand and, with a whispered command and a flash of green, she was back in her house. It took her a moment to comprehend that the lamp beside the sofa was on and Theo was sitting in the middle of her sofa, half-empty firewhiskey bottle in hand and wrapped in a blanket while the television played quietly in the background. He looked about as good as she felt.

"I slept with Fred," Hermione said when he looked up with red-rimmed eyes, her voice sounding foreign as it rang through the quiet house.

"I broke up with Neville," Theo replied hoarsely.

After a moment in which they simply looked at each other, he pulled the edge of the blanket back and she sighed. She dropped her boots on the ground beside the hearth with a thunk before crossing the room and curling under it next to him.

He wordlessly offered her the bottle of firewhiskey, which she accepted, pressing it to her lips and feeling the amber liquid scorch her tongue. She dropped her head onto the back of the sofa and he raised the volume on the telly a couple clicks. She thought gloomily that it was a hell of a way to start Christmas Eve.

oOoOoOo

She wasn't sure when exactly she had passed out on the sofa with Theo, but by the time they woke up the next day it was nearly noon. Head pounding and back aching, she went upstairs to check the basket in her library, intended to collect letters from owls when she wasn't around to do so personally. Empty.

She slowly descended again and dropped back into the nest of pillows and blankets they had created on the sofa; Theo had gotten up to use her bathroom. He'd nearly been worse off than she had the previous night. Apparently, the argument she'd witnessed at the party had been the miniscule tip of a very large iceberg. Earlier that day, Neville had proposed to Theo and Theo, damaged as he made himself out to be, had panicked.

"I couldn't do it," he confessed to her in the wee hours of the morning, eyes staring vacantly forward at the Christmas tree in the corner. "I couldn't do that to him. I'm too fucked up. Between my father and my mother and everything that happened with the war… he deserves someone that isn't emotionally inept."

Hermione, who would normally chastise her friend for being so self-deprecating, snorted softly and nodded in understanding. While she didn't agree, Theo was clearly capable of loving and being loved as much as anybody was, she'd be a hypocrite to tell him he wasn't justified in his decision. Hadn't she just done the same thing?

"I'm going home," he said, emerging from her downstairs toilet clutching his jacket in one hand. "You're out of firewhiskey and I don't plan on being sober again until the new year."

She just nodded. Apparently, the events of the previous night had rendered her mute.

"Take care of yourself Hermione," he said. As he turned and walked to her fireplace to floo home, he chuckled darkly under his breath and shook his head. "And Happy fucking Christmas."

After he disappeared, she slumped sideways on the sofa and pulled the blanket over herself, curling her knees into her stomach. She felt movement by her feet and, a moment later, four paws began to pad up her leg and over her hip until Felix stepped into the vacant space on the sofa in front of her chest. He looked at her, likely concerned that she might waste away and he would starve, and clumsily bopped the top of his head against her cheek.

"You still love me, yeah?"

He meowed in response before circling and kneading until he plopped down below her chin. She scratched his ears and huffed out a sigh, the pounding in her head intensifying as she did so. How could things have gone so wrong so very quickly?

Other than getting up for a trip to the loo, a change of clothes, and a plate of toast and jam, that was how Harry found her several hours later.

"Hermione, are you – oof," he said, cutting off when he stepped through the fireplace and spotted her buried under a mass of blankets. He raised his eyebrows at her and she just shook her head. "I'm not going to bother asking if you're alright."

"Spectacular," she croaked, sitting up and taking her cocoon with her.

"What happened last night?" he asked, crossing the living room and taking a seat beside her. "You disappeared right before the gift exchange, and then nobody could find Fred…"

It was only then that she began to cry in earnest.

"Harry," she choked between sobs, "I messed everything up."

Felix gave him an accusatory look before getting off the sofa in search of his food bowl.

"Hey, I'm sure it's not as bad as you think," her friend offered uncertainly, putting an arm around her shaking shoulders. "Come on, it's Fred. What could have possibly-?"

"I love him," she gasped, cutting him off. "I love him and he… he doesn't want me, not like that."

"Did he say that?" Harry asked, immediately going on the defensive.

She shook her head and pointlessly whisked tears off of her cheeks only to have them replaced seconds later.

"I slept with him Harry."

Harry, who was normally happy not to be privy to any details pertaining to her sex life, raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Oh."

A hysterical chuckle bubbled to her lips at the expression on his face.

"Did you two… how did you leave things?"

"We didn't," she explained, accepting the handkerchief he had conjured and offered to her. "I left before he woke up."

"So, you didn't talk about it?"

She shook her head.

"Bleeding hell…" he dragged a hand through his hair and sat back against the cushions. "For two absolutely brilliant people, you're being utter morons."

"Gee, thanks," she scoffed, "don't kick me while I'm down or anything."

"Look," he said, getting off the sofa, "just come to The Burrow for Christmas roast tomorrow, okay?"

"Have you lost your mind?!" she asked, staring at him as if she'd never seen him before. "I can't go there!"

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course, but I-"

"Do you think I would ask you to go if I thought it was a bad idea?"

"No, but Harry-"

"Come to The Burrow tomorrow for dinner."

She looked up at him, a man that she had quite literally marched into fire with, and slowly nodded. Whether it was because she genuinely believed things would work out or because she simply wanted someone to have the answers, she wasn't sure. But when everything was going wrong, trusting Harry had proved a sound decision in the past.

"Love you Hermione," he leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. "Drink some water and sleep in your bed tonight. I'll see you tomorrow."