Hermione smiled contentedly as she lay sprawled out on the sofa in her living room, carefully placing her finished book down on the side table. She mused that if her life were a book, it would be rather dull, as everything seemed to be going wonderfully - calmly, for once. She'd had more than enough adventure throughout her school years, and she was sure that there would be plenty more to come when they faced Voldemort again, but for now, everything was peaceful and running exactly as she'd planned. Wedding arrangements weren't nearly as hectic as she'd expected - she was sure that it was down to her and Terry both being so organised. If (purely hypothetically, she reassured herself), it were Ron she was marrying, she was certain things would not have been running so smoothly - although some of the time, that was what made things fun...
“Terry?” she called out, consciously bringing her thoughts back around to the man she was actually marrying. She wasn't able to see him sitting at the desk behind her, but she could tell from the sound of the quill scratching that he hadn’t left. “Can you believe it’s only two days until our wedding?”
“I know, it’s all come around so fast,” he agreed. Though not quite so excitedly as if he’d just made a breakthrough in his report, Hermione felt. She pushed the thought out of her mind immediately, feeling more than a little guilty.
“Think, soon it’s our wedding, who knows how long it will be until we’re having our first child!" Hermione exclaimed, trying to bring in the air of excitement she wanted to hear from her fiancé. "Then who knows how long it will be until we’re sitting on our rocking chairs, playing with our grandchildren!”
“Well, that will probably be a very long time.” Hermione looked round from her spot on the sofa to Terry, unmoved from his position at the desk.
“What do you mean by that?” Hermione laughed. “I’m not saying we’re old! I only meant it as one of those conversations you have with the person you love, thinking about how our lives are going to be together.”
“Oh, I know. I just don’t plan on having children too soon - if at all - that’s all.” Terry continued with his work as Hermione sat up, perturbed. "Besides, don't you think it's more wise to think about the present than the future?"
“What do you mean, you don’t want to have children?” she questioned, rather fiercely, it sounded to Terry.
“Well, you know how important my work is to me Hermione - I mean, I was a Ravenclaw after all!” he pointed out defensively, for the first time looking up from the parchment and quill in front of him. Hermione noticed that he didn't actually roll the parchment away and put the quill down to give her his undivided attention, before chiding herself for sounding so selfish.
“Are you saying you never want to have children? I mean, I know you were in Ravenclaw, but does being a Ravenclaw mean you don’t have feelings? For Merlin's sake Terry, old school houses don't mean everything, not now!” Hermione knew she was being hysterical, but she couldn’t help it. How could he have overlooked something so important to her? Perhaps it was the fact that she'd always taken for it for granted that one day, after all the fighting and horror was over, she would get married and have children, and get her happily ever after, like at the end of all fairytales. She hadn't even considered the prospect that the man she was marrying might not want the same things. After all, what would their future be without children? What would they do when all their friends were seeing their children off at the Hogwarts Express, or going to buy them new robes, their selection of schoolbooks, or even the latest Firebolt model? Wouldn't they feel lonely, not receiving any owls complaining about homework, or pleading for a written excuse to get out of serving detention in the Forbidden Forest, or asking for advice on what to do about the next Hogsmeade weekend? Hermione knew that she would, at least. Hermione knew that she hadn't always been exactly like other little girls - whilst the other girls had been playing with dolls and dressing-up, she had been reading, or experimenting with what she didn't quite understand but grew to learn was magic. When the other girls were beginning to experiment with make up and hair accessories, Hermione had always felt that it didn't matter how her hair looked every day at school, that what was important was what she learned and how she used it. But what she had been like every other little girl was in how she too had dreamt of her wedding, her husband, her children, her future. It was like an impossible jigsaw puzzle - try as she might, Hermione couldn't understand how she could get the picture to look right without one of the pieces.
She wondered why they hadn't had that conversation before, but secretly, she knew. Hermione wasn't too accustomed to thinking about the future - she agreed with Terry in that the present had always been far more pressing - and after all, there had always been the ominous undertone that they might not make it to the future throughout all of the perils she, Harry and Ron had lived through.
“Hermione!" said Terry reproachfully, finally putting down his quill and looking over to where she sat. "If I didn’t have feelings, why would I be marrying you?”
“I don’t know, you tell me!” she snapped. Terry turned away, obviously hurt. Hermione exhaled deeply, annoyed by the silence. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” He didn’t reply, irritating Hermione further. I never thought I’d see the day I’d be longing for Ron to retort back loudly at me, she thought, almost smiling at the (numerous) memories. “Only, this is really important to me. I just can’t believe you don’t want to start a family! I mean, I don‘t want to yet, but someday? Maybe we should have talked about this before - I just always assumed-”
“That’s OK,” Terry interrupted, speaking soothingly in hopes of placating Hermione. “You know, I didn't mean I never want to have children. It’s still an option. It’s just that I generally put my work first, and I really don’t think that’s going to change. Okay?” he asked in a gentle voice, patting Hermione's hand encouragingly as he left the room leaving Hermione still sitting, her mouth wide open and her head whirring with a lot more thoughts than she had previously had.
Ron couldn't believe that the day had come around so fast. It seemed like only yesterday that he had been following Hermione around and making elaborate plans to convince her to dump Terry and marry him, all of which seemed to end up with Terry hanging perilously off the edge of a cliff, or becoming the Giant Squid's new best friend.
But now it was the day Hermione was getting married. Not to him. To Terry. He still hadn't found a way to stop it - he had been too late once more, and it looked like time was running out. Fast. Although he personally expected the day to drag out like some horrible nightmare. To him that was what it was; a nightmare.
He still wasn’t sure how he had been roped into helping out with Harry’s duties as a groomsman, as that involved being in close proximity with Terry - and Hermione. Which might mean giving him one last chance to stop the wedding…
“Okay, Luna, you are in charge of the flowers, the food, the wizard conducting the ceremony, the guests, the ushers, the groomsmen, my parents, the hall, the caterers, the photographer, the seating, the speeches, the clothes, the lighting, the decorations, making sure no random animal intrude and the directions,” Hermione delegated to Luna’s nod of acceptance.
“Hey! What about me?” Hermione noticed that Ginny looked more than slightly put out. “I’m Maid of Honour! How come you haven‘t given me anything to do?” It was the morning of the wedding, and Hermione had everything to plan, complete with clipboard, so that nothing could ruin the day. That was the idea, anyway.
“Well, I weighed everything up so you would each get an equal amount to do,” she explained.
“How? There’s nothing left for me to do!”
“Oh yes there is. You’re in charge of the twins!” Hermione smiled as she turned back to the mirror, fixing her earrings.
Ginny paled, managing to utter only four words.
“This is so unfair!”
If Ginny had known that her job as Maid of Honour would have been this exhausting, she would have had second thoughts. If Ginny had known it would involve trying to keep track of and control Fred and George, she would have point blank refused. But Ginny had not known either of those things, and so had spent the past half an hour running around the venue, trying not to trip over her dress and look like a headless chicken, searching for her brothers.
“You can’t steal the groom and expect no one to notice!” Ginny hollered when she eventually found them. She half wished that she’d left them lost.
“Well…why not? It’s only Terry!” Fred asked, trying valiantly to defend himself.
“You have to put him back! Hermione will go mad! Or get mad - most likely at me, as I‘m supposed to keep you two from causing mayhem! Then I will get mad at you - and then you will find your faces incredibly disfigured with bats! So where is he?” The twins were impressed that such a loud noise could come from someone so small. They backed away towards the table behind them, trying and failing to show they were perhaps a little intimidated.
“Nowhere!” Fred protested at the same time as George admitted:
“The attic.” Ginny smiled triumphantly and sprinted out of the room, though making sure not to get her dress crinkled. If anyone had been watching, they would have found it very strange that evil grins returned to the twins’ faces almost immediately after their sister left, as they proceeded to bend down, lift up the tablecloth which had been trailing along the floor, and drag out the groom. The twins merrily ignored the muffled cries from beneath his makeshift gag, which looked suspiciously like one of Dobby‘s homemade socks. They suspected he would have tried to punch, kick and curse them if his arms and legs hadn’t been bound together with ribbon (which had previously been wrapped around some of the gifts). But as they were attempting to remove Terry from the room, Ginny reappeared, her face matching her hair, suggesting that she was not amused.
“There is no attic!” she yelled, only to find Fred and George standing in front of a moving bundle on the floor with semi-guilty expressions on their faces.
“Oh,” Fred said, attempting to ignore completely the bundle rolling around behind him, hoping that the muffled shouts of indignation wouldn't carry too far.
“Who’d have thought?” George added, trying to sound innocent. Ginny glared at them both.
“The five people I asked for directions!” Apparently her fury at being made a fool of overcame her curiosity at what (or who) exactly the thrashing table cloth behind the twins was. After giving them both fierce glares, she stormed out, also forgetting entirely the reason why she had been looking for the attic in the first place. Fred and George heaved a joint sigh of relief as they resumed transporting Terry to a more inconspicuous hiding place.
“Oh, so this is why we got Hermione a large bird cage as a wedding present!”
“Well, it was bound to come in useful at some point!”