This is a one-shot I started about a year or so ago for a fanfic contest over at Godrics Hollow. I started it, worked on it for a while, had something come up and never finished it. Finally got around to it a couple months ago, but didn't get around to posting it, as I was hoping to get The Rest is Silence finished first. As I've hit a bit of writer's block there, I'm going to go ahead and post this, to show that I am still out here, working on things!

This takes place after the conclusion of The Rest is Silence, in the same general world, and doesn't take into account much of anything that happened after Book 4, unless it happened to fit what I'd already planned to do. I do not have any affiliation with JK Rowling or the true world of Harry Potter. The characters belong to JKR, I just like playing with them!

Thanks to all those over on LiveJournal who had helped me brainstorm for the "list". And, as always, many thanks to my Beta, LadyBrannon!

Alinora

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Pros and Cons

"I feel as confused now as I did trying to keep up with where I was supposed to be during Third year with that wonderful Time Turner!" Hermione muttered to herself, as she paced the floor of the sparsely decorated flat. It was rare that she had enough free time to devote to what she laughingly called her 'personal life' but with the end of her time at University, she found that she no longer had an excuse to avoid the one topic she was most afraid to think about too closely.

Ron.

Not that he'd done anything, really, to cause a problem, but it was coming; she knew it.

She'd first seen the signs two years ago, when Fred and Angelina had gotten married. Then both George and Ginny had tied the knot, Ginny marrying their best friend Harry. But if she had to say what had finally caused the change, it probably would have been when their friend Colin had died, suddenly, with his wife and brother's family. That one event had brought home to them all just how fleeting life could really be.

After that, she'd started seeing that look in his eyes…

Hermione made another lap of the room, idly kicking at things on the floor, until she accidentally connected with one of Ron's Auror training books. As it was rather large and heavy, it hurt quite a bit and she limped to a nearby chair where she collapsed to examine the damage.

"Oh, who am I trying to fool?" she groaned aloud, toe forgotten in her frustration. "I know he's going to propose soon and I can't figure out why that's bothering me. I know I love him and I know he loves me. Why am I even agonizing over this?"

She stared off into the distance, no longer aware of the various Quidditch team posters that made up half of the decorations in the flat she shared with Ron. They'd moved in together a couple years after they'd left Hogwarts, when she was a little over half way through her years at the University. Molly had been… unhappy, to put it mildly, over that event and it had taken months of talking to get her to accept their decision. But Ron had finally managed to do it. He really was very good at working out strategies to get things done, once he'd put his mind to it.

Hermione pushed herself to her feet and began circling the room again. She would pick up something, carry it for a while, and then randomly put it back down in a new location. She finally came to a halt near a stack of her books from school. Staring blindly down at the stack of books, parchment and quills, she idly picked up a quill, twirling it around her fingers.

"I know! I'll go about this logically. I'll list out the pros and cons of marring Ron and maybe I'll figure out why the thought is bothering me so much! Why I can't stop thinking about it." She pulled out a clean sheet of parchment and placed it flat on the table and laid the quill down beside it. Pulling out her wand, she quickly cast the note taking charm she'd come to know quite well while at school. As she finished, the quill floated upright and held itself at the ready above the parchment.

"We will be composing a list of the pros and cons of marring Ron Weasley. The purpose is to see how the list balances out. Begin." The quill began to quickly scratch its way across the paper, setting up a chart to track her words. When it finished, it came to an anticipatory halt, waiting for her to begin.

"Okay… pro- I love him and he loves me," the quill began to move again while Hermione began to wander the room, "con- he can have a nasty temper, though he rarely gets mad at me or any of his friends," she added honestly. While she and Ron had fought like cats and dogs in school, she'd always known that he'd never meant most of what he said and would be the first to jump to her defense if necessary. As he'd shown on the many occasions when they'd had run ins with Draco.

"Pro- he's very determined, once he decides to do something. Con- he doesn't put a lot of thought or effort into learning, though he did make it into Auror training and has done quite well there…" That had surprised many people. They'd never expected to see Ron Weasley, who had never appeared to put much emphasis on his school work, be accepted into Auror training after leaving Hogwarts, but he had and he'd done well, devoting a lot of his free time to reading the books assigned to them and getting her help in doing additional research on ideas that he thought would benefit their work.

"Pro- he's very loyal. When he gives someone his friendship and trust, they have it forever. Case in point, the Chudley Canons," she added with a slight grimace, as she could wish him to be a bit less loyal to that particular group. "Con- he sometimes lets that care and concern make him say things that are less than well thought out, such as that argument he had with Ginny and Ali a couple years back when he found out just what activities they'd been up to for the Order; though, once he understood that they were competent, he was the first to stand up in their defense." She knew how much he hated seeing those he loved in danger, but, over the years, he'd learned that he'd have to let them do what they needed to even if it meant that they could be hurt. Just like they'd had to let him sacrifice himself years ago in McGonagall's chess game because they knew it was necessary.

Speaking of that chess game… "Pro- he's a great strategist. I don't know anyone else who, at the age of eleven, could've bested that game, and he's only improved from there. He has a real talent for thinking things like that through, and they've really capitalized on that during his Auror training." While a number of their friends had been trained as Aurors during the chaotic years following Voldemort's defeat, he had been the youngest of the group to been given a leadership position and they figured he'd be up for a promotion sometime in the next six months.

"Pro- he has a wonderful family who has always accepted me, even though I don't come from a wizarding family." She and Molly had had a couple of disagreements over the years, the first a misunderstanding while they were all still at Hogwarts and the second being the previously mentioned disagreement over their living arrangements. She wasn't sure what Molly had imagined the arrangements were when George was visiting with Ali while they were on the road, or Harry with Ginny, for that matter, but, as Fred had cheerfully told her when she had confronted him over his and Angelina's previous arrangements, "what Mum doesn't know, won't hurt us!" Denial was a highly underappreciated skill of Molly's; she just wished it had been put into practice a bit more when it came to her and Ron.

"Pro- he's always treated me well. He respects my abilities and trusts me to do what needs to be done. Not that he always agrees with what needs to be done." She laughed. Getting older and, supposedly, more mature hadn't stopped the two of them from arguing, but that was only to be expected with two headstrong people. More times than not, they were arguing for the fun of it, not because either of them felt it was necessary.

"I can't imagine us not being together," she said to herself softly, having forgotten the scratch of the quill in her musings. "We make a perfect team. We balance each other out- I'm more likely to hold back and think things through while he's more likely to rush into things. I've encouraged him to do more thinking and he's taught me how to not over think things all the time." Her steps slowed from their steady pace and she dropped into a convenient chair.

"My parents love him and I know they approve. They've just been too polite to quiz me about him and our plans. Our friends all expect it too. To be honest, so do I. I want to marry him, so why does the thought of him proposing bother me so much?" She paused for a moment when it struck her. It bothered her only because it was so traditional, so expected. Just what everyone thought would happen with the two of them. And that's not what she wanted.

She wanted to propose to him.

She was a bit stunned by that thought for a moment, but soon an impish grin crossed her face as she began to consider the implications and plan how best to surprise him with it. She remembered to end the note taking charm before picking up the careful chart it had constructed for her. She chuckled as she reread it then quickly tore it into small pieces before feeding it to the fire. Taking a seat at the table she pulled out another clean piece of parchment, picked up the quill and set to work laying out the framework for her proposal of marriage.

He'd never know what hit him!