A/N: I was in a bout of serious writer's block one night and decided to just switch gears and write something completely different. And this, the fake dating AU that nobody asked for, is what happened. Thanks to the lovely aloemilk for giving it a readsie and for the support.

Hope you all enjoy!

Title borrowed from "Homemade Dynamite" by Lorde.

"Your aunt Carla rang us the other day," said Mr. Granger, glancing over his shoulder at Hermione as he drove. "She wanted to know who you'll be bringing as your guest to the wedding."

"A guest?" Hermione repeated, bewildered. "Do I really need to bring a guest?"

"Well, of course, dear," said Mrs. Granger from the passenger seat, as though Hermione was insane for even questioning it. "They've made arrangements for you to bring somebody, that's why your invitation was addressed to you and a guest."

"And how, exactly, would I know that?" Hermione poked a finger through the bars on Crookshanks' basket and gave him a scratch behind the ears. "I've been away at school, I haven't even seen it."

"That isn't their fault," her mum replied, her tone even. "They sent out the invitations months ago. If you'd just come home at Christmas like we had planned-"

"I couldn't!" Hermione blurted out, surprising herself with the force of her voice. But when she thought back to the first morning of the Christmas hols, waking up to learn Mr. Weasley had nearly died, the terror and anguish came roaring back as though it had happened yesterday. "I - it was exams," she added, more calmly. "I had a lot of revision to do."

"You're not going to change it by arguing," continued Mr. Granger with infuriating calm, deftly guiding the car through a roundabout. "They're expecting you to bring someone. They've paid for the meal and there's a place at the table and everything."

"I don't see why we can't just tell them-"

"Of course we can't just tell them," said Mrs. Granger. "You know how your Aunt Carla is, and besides, it's too late to change anything."

Hermione's face had gone a deep red, her unexpressed rage simmering just below the surface. So they had just gone and signed her up for bringing a date, not bothering to consult her, not bothering to consider that she only had two close friends, and both were wizards. Did they expect her to just conjure up a date out of thin air?

From inside his basket, Crookshanks gave a low whine of dissatisfaction; he despised being confined - or perhaps he, like Hermione, had recognized the absolute absurdity of the situation.

The tidily manicured streets of suburban London whizzed by out the window, though Hermione barely registered it. The past school year had, by and large, been most akin to something out of her nightmares, and yet when she thought of Hogwarts, with its wild cliffs and dark, mysterious lake and infinite towers and turrets, she felt a sharp stab of homesickness. Isolation in the Muggle world was the last thing she needed.

"What about your friend Harry?" Mrs. Granger shifted in her seat to face Hermione more fully, a hopeful look on her face. "He's a nice boy, you could invite him."

Logically speaking, it wasn't the worst idea. Harry had grown up around Muggles, so the likelihood of him slipping up and saying something he shouldn't was quite low, and he'd likely have something to wear. The issue, of course, was the specific set of Muggles with whom he had to live, and Hermione doubted they would let him out of the house if they thought there was even the remotest chance that he might enjoy himself. These were people, after all, who had once sent him a single tissue for a Christmas gift.

"I don't think he'll be able to go," said Hermione slowly. "His aunt and uncle are, erm… really strict."

"Well, then, you should bring Ron!" Mrs. Granger lit up at the very thought. "That would be just lovely, wouldn't it? Oh, and he's so tall."

She nodded eagerly at this last point, an almost-manic look in her eyes.

"Yes, so I've noticed." She actually hadn't stopped noticing, as much as she wished she could.

"I think that's just perfect, I don't know why we didn't think of it before. Just ring him when we get home-"

"They don't have a phone, Mum, remember?" An image sprang to mind of a table littered with dismantled rotary phones and spare cords in the Weasley family shed. "None that work, anyway."

"Well, then, do whatever you have to do, honey, but the wedding is in less than two weeks."

Hermione wasn't concerned about her means of communication; it wouldn't be long before Pigwidgeon or Hedwig came flying up to her family home. Harry had been expressly told that he needed to write regularly, if only assure his friends that he was not in immediate need to rescue, and it was usually only a matter of days before Ron scrawled out a letter detailing how boring life was at the Burrow and inviting her to stay. And given that Hermione thought that the Burrow was the absolute opposite of boring, she was always eager to take him up on the offer.

And if she wanted to do that again, she had better stay in her parents' good graces.

"Fine," said Hermione as Crookshanks rubbed the side of his face against her finger, a deep purr rumbling out of his furry throat. "I'll invite him."

•••

Upon waking, Hermione wasn't immediately sure where she was. It was always like this on her first few nights back home, as though the shift from magical to Muggle life was still taking place. If she kept her eyes closed, she could pretend that she was not in London, that she could wake and head down to the common room and wait for Ron and Harry to join her for breakfast. But when she did, with reluctance, peel open her eyes, the crimson and gold of the Gryffindor dormitories had gone, replaced now by the gentle pastel tones in which her mum had decorated her room while she had been away. Rather than the soft breathing and occasional snore from her dormmates, the silence in the room told her that she was quite alone.

Shoving back the duvet, Hermione swung her legs out of bed and stood, toes sinking into the plush carpet. Her parents would have already left for the dental practice, so she was on her own to fix breakfast, but she didn't much mind. More time to herself meant more time to work out exactly how to approach inviting Ron to this wedding. How to present the situation as a positive, rather than asking him to come to an event where he would, in all likelihood, feel wildly out of place, where he would not know a single soul other than her, where he would have to lie about nearly every single detail about himself.

There was no question that he would do it, but it was quite a lot to ask.

Just as she was considering finding her way to Diagon Alley so she could use the owl post office, there was a sharp tapping on her window. With a yowl, Crookshanks darted across the room and leapt nimbly onto the windowsill to swat his paw at the little owl hovering behind the glass.

Hermione's stomach flipped with excitement. Gently nudging the cat out of the way, she shoved the window up to allow Pigwidgeon inside. Tied to his leg was a scroll of parchment, sealed with a glob of red wax, though it took Hermione some effort to stop Pig from soaring animatedly around the room so that she could actually retrieve it.

Dear Hermione,

Hope you made it home safe. It's already so boring here, the twins have moved out so it's just me and Ginny. I asked her if she wanted to play Quidditch later today, and she said no because 'it wouldn't really be a challenge' so that was a real confidence boost. But anyway, Harry's going to be here in a couple weeks to spend the rest of the summer, I guess Dumbledore's supposed to bring him, so you can come and stay anytime you want. And the sooner the better, because it seems like Mum's just been saving up chores for when we got back and now, for some reason, the entire house needs to be deep-cleaned and if I have a visitor, maybe that'll let me off the hook.

Or maybe not, but I can dream. Honestly, she'll probably just recruit you for the chores too.

Also, Dad was saying that it would be best if you came shopping for school supplies with us and not your Mum and Dad, they're worried about Diagon Alley not being safe for Muggles. He's just been promoted and a lot of his new job has to do with fake Dark Magic protection things - like someone selling amulets in Diagon Alley that claim to protect you against the Avada Kedavra, but really it's just like a clove of garlic and some cat hair or something barmy like that. It's not like I think you'd ever fall for anything like that, but Diagon Alley really isn't the same as it used to be. So I know you get excited about getting your books and things but please just wait and don't go there without us.

And let me know when you can come to stay.

Ron

As Pigwidgeon dipped his beak into Crookshanks' water bowl (which the latter watched with his yellow eyes narrowed in suspicion, the end of his bottlebrush tail twitching back and forth), Hermione grabbed a sheet of stationery and a ballpoint pen from her desk, perched on the edge of her chair, and let the words flow.

Dear Ron,

I promise not to go into Diagon Alley. I'm also really glad you wrote to me, because I have a bit of a favor to ask you…

Ten minutes later, Pigwidgeon was winging his way back into the sky, and Hermione's heart was beating through her chest.

But she tried not to think about it as she fixed herself breakfast, and took her morning healing potions, and settled into the sofa with a book on centaur land rights that Madame Pince had let her bring home for the summer. The letter was out there in the world, on its way from London to Ottery St. Catchpole, and there was nothing she could do to change it now. And truly, what choice did she have? She had no friends from primary school with whom to reconnect, and clearly, where her parents were concerned, not bringing a guest to this wedding was a fate worse than death.

Besides, if Ron was really as bored with life at the Burrow as he claimed, he would be happy for an excuse to escape.

Around lunchtime, Hermione's mum rang to check on her, as though she and Crookshanks might get up to mischief if left unsupervised. She answered all the usual questions about her morning, and said that no, she hadn't heard back from Ron yet, but yes, she had asked already, and that owls were, most of the time, even faster than the Muggle post. After listening to a tale of a patient who had been born with an extra set of wisdom teeth, she hung up feeling thoroughly exhausted, and no sooner had she set the phone back down on the receiver than it jangled again.

"Good afternoon, Granger residence," she rattled off, leaning against the work surface and flipping idly through a catalog that had arrived in the post.

"Er - Hermione?"

She stood up straight.

"Ron?"

"Can you hear me?"

"Yes, of course I can hear you - where are you?" Why are you using a phone? is what she felt like asking, but she bit her tongue.

"I went into town with my mum, she needed to go to the apothecary. So, really, you can hear me?"

"Yes," Hermione said, smiling in amusement at his disbelief. "Loud and clear."

"Even if I do this?" His voice dropped to a dramatic whisper.

"Yes - that's the whole point of a telephone, you can just talk normally."

"This is weird," he marveled. "That time I rang Harry, I was too busy getting told off to really think about it."

Hermione laughed. It had only been a day, but it was still so good to hear his voice. "Did you get my letter?"

"Yeah, that's why I had to find a phone. It'd really help if you could get your fireplace set up on the Floo Network, by the way-"

"My parents would never do that - come to that, I don't know that the Ministry would even allow it."

"They might," he ventured. "We Flooed to Harry's house that one time."

"And that went really well, as I recall-"

"Because his aunt and uncle are nutters, that wasn't our fault-"

"Anyway, can you come? To the wedding, I mean?"

"Yeah, yeah, Mum said it was fine." Relief at his words gushed through Hermione's body. "But what do I do, like - what are Muggle weddings even like?"

"They're not that much different from wizarding weddings," Hermione assured him. "There's a ceremony, dinner, dancing - it isn't a big deal, except my parents apparently told my aunt that I would bring a guest so they've made arrangements for one and now it's too late to change things so-"

"I know that," said Ron, impatient, "but what am I supposed to wear?"

"Oh. Right."

Ron's limited wardrobe of Muggle clothing consisted largely of hand-me-down denims, faded t-shirts, and hand-knitted jumpers with his initial on them - none of which was suitable for a country club wedding. Dress robes, naturally, were out of the question, and while Hermione was sure that her parents would gladly buy him a Muggle suit, given that this whole debacle was their idea, she was equally sure that Ron's pride would never allow it.

"Well…" Hermione cast wildly about for a solution. "You could wear your school uniform trousers, couldn't you? Those will work, and then you could borrow a dress shirt and tie from my dad-"

"From your dad?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

A cool, robotic voice came over the line. "One minute remaining."

"I'll look through Bill's old closet," said Ron, "maybe he left some things here. I've gotta go anyway, though, Mum's waving at me-"

"That's fine, go, we can figure the rest out by owl. And thank you," she added sincerely, "you're really saving me."

"Yeah," he chuckled. "S'no problem. See ya later."

"Bye."

Slowly, Hermione set down the phone. Her cheeks had gone completely hot.

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