A week before her 21st birthday, Hermione was giving Ron's flat a thorough cleaning, as a lovely surprise for when he got home from helping out at George's joke shop, when she came across a tiny square box in his sock drawer. Her heart stopped. It rose to her throat, then plummeted to her stomach.
Could it be?
They had never discussed marriage. To her, it was simply a matter of time. She had always thought it would not come for a while though, until after he was out of Auror training and she had finished her post-graduate studies. That idea made the most sense to her and it had never struck her that he would think otherwise, that marrying sooner rather than later was a good choice. Was it?
He had just moved into his first apartment two months ago, a tiny studio flat a few streets over from Diagon Alley and she had thought leaving the comforts of the Burrow was a big enough step for him, let alone a marriage proposal.
Accidentally, her fingers knocked the box over, and it popped open. Something small let out a dull thud as it fell into the drawer. She shut her eyes tight but the sharp glint of metal against the ceiling light was irresistible and curiosity was peeling her eyelids open. It was a ring all right.
A key ring.
A. Key. Ring.
Hermione knew how much difficulty Ron had with gifts. For years after the awkward perfume exchange during their fifth year, he had played it safe with the gift-giving, totally avoiding jewelry, lingerie - anything feminine. He would give her chocolates on Valentine's Day now, but for her birthday or Christmas, he stuck to the practical; usually a book, a scarf or mittens in the winter. The most radical gift she'd received in the past 5 years had been a new wristwatch (he had dropped hers in the sink 3 weeks prior). By no means did she hold this against him; it was a little quirk that charmed her, his discomfort. She knew he'd rather give her something he knew she would use, and she knew he put a lot of thought into whatever it was, regardless. He showed his love for her in many other ways, so gifts didn't fall on her list of grievances.
However … a key ring. It was the type of bauble you pick up at a corner store, when you've forgotten, when you have no other option or when you simply don't care. It was such an afterthought. He'd have been better off giving her nothing at all. She stuffed the offending object - which was decorated with a variety of tacky charms, she remarked a lion and several other heads - back into its box, slammed the sock drawer, once, twice, three times for good measure and stormed out of the apartment, making sure to wait to Apparate until after she had slammed the door there too.
Upon her return home, she stomped up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door. She flopped onto her bed and sighed. Slowly her burning anger was fading into a dull disappointment. Eventually she had hoped he would step up the gift-giving game, as she spent weeks analyzing patterns on ties, studying the benefits of various broom accessories and dragging various friends and family members into the painstaking process of choosing the perfect item to physically exemplify her love. In return, she had earned a key ring.
Her mother rapped tentatively at the door. "Hermione, are you … all right?" she asked.
"No," Hermione answered in a flat voice.
Her mother sat down next to her on the bed, and Hermione unleashed the events of that afternoon and her feelings. In response, she sighed. "Dear, you know you are totally blowing this out of proportion. For one, who says what you found has anything to do with you?"
"My birthday's in a week and it was hidden," she shot back.
"If you're not going to listen to reason, I'm not going to try and talk you down. I suggest you calm down and don't let Ron know that you snooped. You wouldn't be having this problem if you could just look away, especially when you know you shouldn't be looking. I hate to break it to you darling, but you're in the wrong here. Let it go, Ron loves you whether he gives you a key ring, an engagement ring or nothing at all for your birthday."
Hermione knew her mother was right, but she just wanted someone to agree with her.
The next six days came and went. Hermione kept up as much of a cheerful facade as she could with Ron, but finally the night before her birthday, as they were walking down his street, he gave her a funny look and asked, "All right, what's wrong? You've been acting weird all week. Might as well let me know what I've done now."
She was torn between unleashing her sentiments and brushing it off. Her blood had always run hot though, and she finally spit out, "I'm just not very excited for my birthday this year."
"Why not?"
"Well, I was cleaning your apartment, and I had done a wash. I was putting your socks away when I found … it," she said, her voice wavering.
"It?" They had stopped walking and Ron was giving her a blank stare, he clearly had no idea what she was talking about.
"In a box … in your sock drawer … you know what I mean."
"A box? In my sock drawer?" She watched the colour drain from his face as it dawned on him. "You found your birthday gift?" he shouted as the colour returned and his face flared red.
"Yes Ronald, I did! I found a bloody key ring! A tacky key ring! Honestly, after all this time could you have not put in just a little effort! I try so hard, I try to do everything I can to make sure you know just how much I love you and I get a key ring!" her tirade ended in a shrill screech as her chest heaved. Her fists were balled at her sides; she was a vision of rage.
"Hermione, you completely missed the point!" he shouted back. "You have no idea what you found! No, instead you just decided to simmer about it all week and jump to conclusions because you're so brilliant that you know exactly what you found and that you were right! But you were not! You're wrong!"
Hearing those two words shook her. "Excuse me?" she gasped.
"You, Hermione Granger, were wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!" he shouted.
"All right, I get it! Stop yelling at me! I was … not totally right! Okay?"
He shook his head, clearing his face of the contortion anger had given him. "Sorry, I didn't mean to fly off the handle like that. It's just, I mean … you weren't totally wrong, if that makes you feel better. Do you want your birthday gift now, or tomorrow?"
She had simmered some too. "Now, I suppose it's as good a time as any." Hand in hand they strolled the two minutes' walk to his apartment.
Once they were inside, Ron had her shut her eyes. "Open," he ordered, placing a small metal object in her hand.
She opened. There it was, the key ring. Attached to it were five charms. "Now, I know you think it's stupid, but let me try to explain here," he stated. "The first charm there is a lion for Gryffindor. The second is an otter, because it's your Patronus - do you know how hard it is to find an otter charm? I ended up ordering one from a Muggle shop because I kept buggering up transfiguring it. The third is a dog, which is my Patronus. I thought they should be on there together, since we're together. The fourth is a book because, well, you wouldn't be you without a book in your hand. The last one is a tiny bottle of Amortentia, there's just a drop in there, but you can still smell it, I checked. Just in case I'm gone a lot like I was last month, and you forget what I smell like … you can, err, smell it."
Tears welled up in Hermione's eyes, and she realized what a terrible mistake she had made. She wanted to cry and kiss him and tell him what a wonderful job he'd done. But before she had much of a chance to do anything, he continued. "That's not the whole thing. There's also this." He fished around in his back pocket and pulled out a shiny silver key. "I was going to hook this on before I gave it to you. It's a key to my apartment. That's to say … our apartment if you want it to be. Tomorrow I was going to ask you to move in with me. But it looks like I'm going to ask you tonight, with my stupid tacky key ring and … well it was supposed to go a lot nicer than this…" he trailed off, staring at his toes.
"Ronald Weasley, you are absolutely wonderful. I was totally wrong," Hermione pressed a kiss to his cheek.
"Sorry, didn't hear that last part, can you say it again?" he grinned.
"Not bloody likely, good try though. I would love nothing more than to live with you, to clean our tiny apartment and even organize your sock drawer…" She trailed off, lost in a reverie of domestic bliss.
"Oy! My girlfriend is moving in here, not my mum!"
"Oh Ronald, I promise, your mum won't be coming near this apartment for the next few days …" She grabbed him by the hand and they disappeared into their bedroom for the very first time