Work Text:
Crédits : Where The Smiles Have Been
As she looked around the Christmas table, Hermione was bothered by an insidious question that just wouldn’t leave her.
Harry had received a sweater knitted by Molly his very first year at Hogwarts, and she still hadn’t yet. Time had passed; they were almost a full year into the twenty-first century, and she couldn’t help but feel a little bit like an outsider in this family that she loved so much.
She knew that Molly loved her like one of her children or any of the other additions to the family. Merlin only knew how infinitely loving the woman could be. Since the end of the war, Hermione had the impression she and the Weasleys had become so much closer, more than she would have thought possible.
After her failed love story with Ron, they had decided they were better as friends, and she had spent the first part of the summer at Burrow, helping the family rebuild the house that had been destroyed by the Death Eaters during the war.
When the time came for her to go to Australia and restore her parents’ memories, Charlie and Bill came with her without her needing to ask, as if taking care of her was the most natural thing in the world.
Afterwards, with a heavy heart from leaving behind her friends and recently found parents, Hermione had gone back to Hogwarts for her seventh—or eighth—year, depending on how you saw things. She turned to Ginny for support, sealing eternal bonds of friendship between the two young witches. Together, they overcame the nightmares and the bad memories that the still battle-scorched walls brought back. They helped each other go back to a somewhat normal life after all the horrible experiences they lived through and came out on the other side stronger than ever.
Hermione had managed to graduate from Hogwarts with no less than ten NEWTs and celebrated at the Burrow with her parents and the Weasleys. The whole family was all so proud of Hermione and Ginny’s accomplishments.
Now, six months later, she let her gaze wander down the table. She smiled when she saw Ron, his arm around Susan’s chair and whispering things in her ear that made her blush. Since Hermione had introduced them at a Hogsmeade outing during their eighth year, they had become inseparable.
Susan brought Ron a kind of self-confidence that Hermione could have never given him if they had continued their relationship. They were definitely better as friends.
She continued her look around the table, amused to see Percy holding his own facing the twins, who wouldn’t stop teasing him about bringing his mysterious new girlfriend to meet the family. Her heart skipped a beat when her gaze met Fred’s for a moment, and he winked at her before replying to something Percy had said.
She hoped her blush wouldn’t be too evident as she looked around, stopping for a moment to enjoy the conversation between Bill, Charlie, and Fleur, who couldn’t decide on a name for the baby Fleur was currently pregnant with. Why Charlie, as the future godfather, thought he had any say in the baby name was a mystery to Hermione, but it was all part of the Weasley family charm.
She looked over to Ginny and Harry, who looked so happy together. They were taking care of Teddy for the evening, who was carefully sandwiched between the two of them in order to let Andromeda spend a relaxing few hours with Molly and Arthur. They were going to get married during the summer, and it wasn’t clear yet what Hermione’s role in the ceremony would be. Ginny wanted her to be her maid of honour, but Harry wanted her to stand by his side. Hermione sighed and resigned herself to the fact that she would probably end up doing both, as always.
A little tired of the noise and the party ambiance, Hermione excused herself from the table and went for a breather in the winter garden the boys had added to the side of the house as a surprise birthday gift for Molly the previous year.
She smiled as she looked at the snow falling on the glass roof of the little greenhouse. The quiet calm of a snowy field in Devon was fabulous during the holiday season.
Accidentally meeting Fred’s gaze earlier had brought back the moment when, during the Final Battle, she had realised that her heart wasn’t as set on Ron as she might’ve thought…
When she saw Fred’s inert body under the rubble, she felt something inside her break. As if her soul had suddenly collapsed and crumbled into a thousand pieces. She felt her legs go numb under her, and it was only due to her strong will that she kept her calm and ran to him.
She had tried every spell she knew to heal him, and as Percy took off after Rockwood, completely enraged, she had realised that the only way to save Fred was to maintain his vital functions until someone more qualified than her could get to him.
So, in spite of protests from Ron and George, who didn’t understand what she was doing, she had started to do chest compressions on Fred and breathe air into his lungs. Harry, who did know what she was doing thanks to his muggle upbringing, quickly conjured a stretcher, and they rushed Fred’s inert body to the Great Hall.
As they arrived, Hermione was straddling Fred’s torso, keeping up the compressions with a strength she didn’t know was possible. When the stretcher was levitated close to Madam Pomphrey, she immediately took over and brought Fred back from death’s door.
Ever since that day, Hermione enjoyed free unlimited access to everything in the twins’ store and the eternal gratefulness of Molly and the rest of the family. But no knitted sweater with a big H on it appeared last Christmas or this year. Mittens, scarves… Molly had knitted for her since the first time they had met, but she never received the famous sweater that would have confirmed to her the impression she was really part of the family.
Deep inside, Hermione recognised that she was hurt. But she couldn’t talk to anyone about it, especially not to Molly or her children, or Harry. She would look envious, or even worse, like someone who thought that she was entitled to the privilege.
Maybe she was jealous. Hermione really would have liked to be recognised as a part of the family she loved so much, but she couldn’t force them to think of her as one of their own.
Just as she couldn’t share with anyone the feelings she had discovered she had for Fred…
“Knut for your thoughts,” a voice requested from the door, which led from the house to the winter garden.
“My thoughts are worth much more than a Knut, and you know it, Fred,” she replied, still facing the glass wall. She would have recognised the sound of his voice anywhere. People still confused him and George, but to her, they were so different…
“I can go up to a Sickle, but only because you drive a hard bargain…” he continued as he approached her.
“In your dreams, Weasley,” she teased him as she turned around.
Oh. He was much closer than she thought, and they were almost touching now. Just as she tried to take a step back to put a little distance between them, Hermione felt something keep her in place, like an invisible barrier. With a smile tugging at his lips, Fred pointed to a branch of enchanted mistletoe floating over their heads.
“Didn’t that enchanted mistletoe grow old a few years back when you had to kiss Charlie, Fred?” Hermione remarked, used to the twins’ antics by now.
“And if I told you it was the only way I could think of to express my feelings without completely making a fool out of myself?” He asked, uncharacteristically serious.
Hermione couldn’t hold in a surprised squeak. Fred? And her? How had he known? Since she realised her feelings for him, she had tried to be as discreet as possible. She had thought he might be interested in Angelina, but she had recently learned that George was the one who liked her, and they had started dating.
Did he really feel something for her? Thousands of questions were bouncing around in her head as she played back all of their interactions in the last few months. Little moments when they felt close, little attentions he gave her, the earrings he had gifted her for her birthday, his hands sometimes brushing hers for a moment, dinners at The Burrow where the twins conveniently came every time she was there. The meaningful looks George gave Fred when he thought her back was turned… Everything seemed to make sense.
“Oh!” she squeaked, putting a hand over her mouth to mask her surprise.
“Yes, oh!” Fred replied with a hesitant grin. “Now, I will just close my eyes and let you decide. Either you kiss my cheek, the mistletoe will vanish, and I will have been completely wrong about what I thought was your interest in me, and I swear we will never talk about this again. Or you could make another choice.”
Softly, Fred closed his brown eyes and, for a moment that felt much longer than the few seconds it actually lasted, Hermione hesitated. Either she could act now and reveal to Fred that he was right, that she wanted him, or she could lie and deny the whole thing.
She hadn’t been sorted in Gryffindor for nothing, and, standing on the tips of her toes, she softly pressed her lips to Fred’s. He sighed in relief against her mouth and responded with passion.
-O-
A year later, as she was opening her gifts and was trying not to catch her engagement ring in the ribbon, Hermione finally opened a package with a patented Molly knitted sweater adorned with a big H.
When she looked up to thank the older witch, Molly signalled for Hermione to follow her, and they moved discreetly into the kitchen. The two witches exited the room without any other Weasley or Potter seeing them leave in the middle of the chaos that was the gift unwrapping.
“I’m so sorry that I didn’t give you a sweater before now, Hermione.” Seeing the confusion on Hermione’s face, Molly was quick to explain herself. “The sweaters I knit are enchanted with Weasley traditional magic. They bring the intended recipient into the family magic. Harry received one very quickly because he was an orphan, and I wanted to bring him under our protection, but you had your parents, a family… And as long as you weren’t officially part of ours,” she nodded to the ring that was shining on her finger, “I couldn’t offer you what I really wanted to give you for so long. Welcome to the family, my dearest Hermione,” Molly finished with a tremor in her voice.
Not another word was said, and just a few minutes later, a worried Fred, having lost his fiancée, found them clutching each other in a teary embrace.