Ron and Hermione's engagement party was spectacular, he had organised it with Fleur in advance, hoping that Hermione would say yes, so the whole family arrived at Shell cottage that evening to a beautiful sight.

The floating candles from the proposal lined a similar path down to a magical dome of warming charms that shimmered on the beach. Inside, a silver dance floor was surrounded by gold coloured bistro tables and chairs, vases of red roses and scarlet sofas. Ron had become good friends with Lee Jordan while helping with the twins' shop in his free time so the curly haired man gladly agreed to be DJ for the night while Molly provided light bites of food and Fleur bought crates of champagne and firewhiskey. All of their friends, beloved professors and family had a wonderful time toasting the happy couple and dancing the night away, becoming more and more drunk as the hours passed.

"My babies are all grown up!" Molly wept into the shoulder of an equally emotional Jean Granger as they cuddled on a sofa with yet another bottle of champagne.

"She's going to look so pretty in a white dress." Jean hiccoughed in response, her own tears swimming in her unfocused eyes.

"Not sure if she'll be wearing white though" Molly's weeping switched to school girls giggles in an instant as she whispered conspiratorially to her counterpart "she and Ron have been sharing a room for months. They think I didn't know to begin with but you don't raise seven children without knowing their whereabouts in your own house!"

"They may be sharing a bed but I'm not sure…" replied Jean with a cocked head, watching the newly engaged couple spin haphazardly around the dancefloor "They're not very touchy feely are they… More like the very best of friends…"

"Well they are the very best of friends, and everyone's relationship is different. Although, there never is a silencing charm cast on their room." Molly mused, her champagne addled brain attempting to process these observations.

"Care for a dance Mrs Granger?" Fred offered as an interruption, the cheeky smile on his face attempting to hide the pain in his eyes.

"How lovely, yes please dear Fred." Jean accepted quickly, even before George had lost an ear she knew the difference between the twins simply from their demeanours around her only daughter.

"Mum, would you like to dance with your most handsome one eared son?" George asked from beside his twin, both bent formally in request and palms outstretched.

"Hic… oh yes!" Molly agreed with a tipsy giggle causing George's grin to widen even further at how happy his Mum seemed.

Soon the two tipsy mothers were being delicately led around the moonlit dancefloor, the twins really were exceptional dancers, in a gentle waltz until their husbands arrived to relieve the twins and send them off with another bottle of firewhiskey. A campfire had been built by Charlie just outside the warming charms with seats dug into the sand around it, this was where the twins ended up, taking it in turns to take swigs from the bottle of burning spirit.

"How are you doing Freddie?" George asked his twin, he had only been pretending to drink the firewhiskey, hoping it would loosen his brother's tongue enough to process his emotions.

"She looks happy. That's all that matters to me." He replied, toying with the bottle's label and slowly peeling it off the glass.

"But are you happy?" George pried, neither of Fred nor Hermione would be happy if Fred couldn't move on, George knew the witch cared for his twin enough to want him to be happy too.

"I'll be happy if she's happy Georgie. I love her and I'll always be around on the sidelines to be there for her however she needs me" Fred's gaze turned out to face the choppy sea waves "and if what she needs is the best brother in law the world has ever seen then I'll be the best damn brother in law there has ever been."

"You can't spend your life pining after your brother's wife Freddie." George pointed out while trying to hide his exasperation at his twin.

"I love her." Snapped Fred in return "I will always love her and I will never get over it but I would never do anything to hurt her or little Ronniekins. He may be an annoying little git at times but I do love him and I'll always protect him… As long as they're happy, I'll be fine."

"Time for the fireworks lads!" Arthur called from the edge of the warming charms, he had noticed the elder twin's glances at Hermione over the years and didn't want to intrude on any private conversation that his son and his twin might be having tonight so didn't come close enough nor stay long enough to hear them reply.

"Come on then." Fred instructed, dragging his twin up from the sand and striding over to the elaborate display they had set up that afternoon.

"Ready Fred?"

"Ready George."

The first set of fireworks were gorgeous, they lit up the night's sky in cascades and spirals of sparkles in every colour imaginable, eliciting a chorus of oohs and aahs from the gathered guests behind them. However the second set were truly magnificent making the first look simply like child's play, even George hadn't been aware of Fred's work on these and stood with his jaw slack in appreciation.

Red and gold hearts danced across the skies, a golden otter made of fireworks and a scarlet terrier danced and played together across the starlit sky depicting the couple's patronuses. Soon the otter stretched out and the terrier curled up to form a 3D firework display of Hermione's engagement ring. Silver firework bursts illustrating the flanking diamonds became the smiling faces of the young couple who became engulfed by the growing ruby red heart until the whole display erupted with a rainbow display of fountains behind. A whole box of rainbow sparklers finished off the display by writing together in thick lettering of Fred's beautiful calligraphy handwriting 'Congratulations Hermione and Ron'.

"The best damn brother in law there has ever been." Fred told himself and stalked off down the sand to take a well needed breather from the love of his life and his youngest brother snogging under the light of his fireworks.

Jean and Graham watched their daughter and her fiance closely over the next couple of weeks. Hermione had taken the rest of November off work to spend extra time with her parents and help them find a new house. Their old home had been razed by deatheaters searching for Hermione, or for her parents as a way to get to the young heroine, and the sight was heartbreaking.

...

Hermione had landed in an alleyway near their old home with her parents on each arm and chatted amicably with them as they neared the house that she had grown up in. As they came into sight of the building Hermione froze, her heart racing in fear and she gripped her wand tightly in her coat pocket.

"What's wrong darling?" Jean asked in worry, nothing looked amiss to her but she and her husband both knew that Hermione was often able to see more than them.

"We need to go." She muttered and began walking backwards not taking her eyes from the sight before her.

"Why? What's wrong?" Her father asked, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders.

"We just need to go. Now." She replied firmly "I'll tell you when we've gone."

The chill in her eyes convinced her parents and with a cursory glance to check they were alone in the street Hermione apparated them away instantly. They landed in the forest of dean, the new forest, a beach in cornwall near shell cottage, the back alley behind the twins' shop and finally back to the burrow.

"What happened? Why didn't we just come back here?" Graham asked in concern as he held his wife's hair back while she vomited onto the grass from the elongated spinning.

"I'm sorry." Hermione replied, rubbing her mother's back comfortingly with one hand and casting spells to check they hadn't been followed with the other. "I needed to make sure no one followed us. I needed to make sure you were safe."

"Hermione?" Fred asked, his face twisted in worry at the overly alert tone of her voice he recognised from the war, as he appeared out of the orchard with a crate of late harvest apples, which he needed for flavouring a new sour sweet he was designing. "Come inside the wards and tell us what's up."

Guided by Fred the four sat down on a blanket he conjured upon the damp winter grass and he handed Jean a fresh breath mint out of his pocket, part of the shop's 'love confident' range.

"It was rubble." Hermione began in a hoarse whisper "Even the bricks had been destroyed, it looked like they had enjoyed it too. They even left fiend fire behind that was simmering with nothing left to burn… and… they had written 'mudblood' in blood across the front lawn."

"In blood?" Graham asked in horror, his own face going sickly green at this.

"From… from Mr and Mrs Jenkins next door." Hermione appeared stoic and ice cold as she recalled the mangled bodies of her beloved neighbours, charred and decaying on the driveway.

"Oh." Jean vomited again in realisation and Graham looked like he was close to following suit.

It was a quiet, mournful day as the Grangers remembered and toasted their long term neighbours and friends who had spent many evenings babysitting Hermione as she grew up. They had spoiled her with gifts and lavished her with attention each time she returned from school as they had never been able to have children of their own. Hermione felt overwhelmingly guilty for not protecting them as well, she never even imagined that the death eaters would be quite so cruel.

"Can we bury them?" Graham asked after dinner, the first of the three to speak all day since Hermione had shared the news as his tears continued to fall.

"I'm sorry Dad. It wouldn't be safe to go back at all." Hermione said, still chillingly calm. She had taken time to cry over the loss of the couple she loved but the sight didn't seem to faze her as much as it should do for a normal nineteen year old.

"Darling," Jean spoke up across the table of silent Weasleys "what happened in the war? You shouldn't be able to be so calm and collected over this."

"The war's over now Mum. You're safe now so you don't need to worry. I'm glad I sent you away." Hermione replied kindly, she really was glad she had sent away her parents and that somehow, miraculously they had been safe.

"We are so proud of you for doing what you did for us darling." Jean said as she hugged her only daughter.

"Thank you for saving us my dear." Graham added, joining in the hug with fresh tears spilling down his cheeks again.

"Hermione is a hero." Ron spoke up from across the table, looking directly into Hermione's eyes as he spoke "I love you Hermione and I know you don't want to worry your parents but please let us tell them the briefest outline of what you did for our world?"

With a silent, slightly reluctant nod from Hermione, Ron continued.

"Hermione kept Harry and me alive for seven years and is one of the most major reasons why we won the war, by using her intellect, ruthlessness and courage to defeat complex traps, gather information essential to identifying and destroying evil artifacts that kept the darkest wizard alive, evade evil people who wanted to capture us and fought as a front line soldier in multiple battles." Ron stated matter of factly, he had been there for the horrific events and was equally desensitised "In the process she was turned to stone when we were in second year, tortured by a teacher and almost killed by a lethal dark curse that cut open her chest in fifth year, then captured and tortured again to a much worse extent last year. During the final battle she was required to kill or be killed, she came close to death throughout the long battle and watched friends die beside her and the enemy die at her own hand. She did so much more than this though and is celebrated throughout our world for her contributions. She is a hero and without her neither of our worlds would be as safe as they are today."

Jean and Graham stared in shock at their daughter, silently begging her to say it wasn't true, that their little girl had never had to go through all that.

"That's why I sent you away." Hermione added after a long time with no one speaking. "Oh and I got a new scar too."

She pulled up her jumper sleeve to show her parents and her mother bent to kiss the scar.

"You are so brave my darling." Her father whispered.