Disclaimer: No, I am not J.K. Rowling in disguise, hence the HP universe doesn't belong to me.
A big thank you to my Beta Clover Bay. Thank you for making some sentences sound so much better and thank you for the title suggestion :)
Summary: This story starts before the Trio's fourth year. That's when Hermione met Bill for the first time. Their relationship will slowly and gradually progress from there.
Worth the wait
When Hermione arrived at the Bureau, she was enthusiastically greeted by the two youngest Weasleys.
"Good to see you Hermione, finally I am not the only girl around anymore." Ginny smiled, giving her a hug.
"Hey Hermione, how have your holidays been so far? Harry is going to come tomorrow, we'll pick him up." Ron rambled, giving her an awkward pat on the shoulder.
"Since it's the Quidditch World Cup, Charlie and Bill came home," Ron continued explaining. "Oh and don't mention cauldrons or Barty Crouch when Percy is around, and don't ask him about his job."
"Ahem, ok." Hermione looked questioningly at Ginny, but the girl just rolled her eyes and smiled.
As they were about to enter the kitchen, a redheaded man who, undoubtedly had to be one of Ron's brothers, came through the doorway. He had a broad chest, his skin was tanned and on his face he had countless freckles.
"Oi Charlie", Ron said, "meet my friend Hermione, she is going to spend the rest of the holidays with us."
"Pleasure to meet you Hermione", Charlie gave her a nod and a wide grin and then disappeared quickly into the direction of the bathroom.
Inside the kitchen Hermione saw another unfamiliar redhead leaning casually against the kitchen counters.
"Bill this is Hermione", Ron told his eldest brother.
Bill shook Hermione's hand and smiled charmingly at her. "Nice to finally meet you, I've heard a lot about you."
"Ah, have you?" Hermione stammered awkwardly.
His response was a wink and Hermione had to hold on to the kitchen table because her knees had gone weak all of a sudden. She had always thought love at first sight was a silly notion that only ever happened in sappy romance novels but never in real life and certainly not to her. But, standing there in the kitchen on wobbling legs, she was put right, it had taken her less than three seconds to fall for her best friend's charming and devastatingly good looking eldest brother.
Later in the evening, she, Ron, and Ginny sat listening to the stories Bill told them about his treasure hunts. He told them about ancient curses, traps, riddles and dangerous creatures that often protected these treasures. More often than not he would crack a joke that had them all laughing until they're whole bodies hurt.
Hermione couldn't stop looking at him, the way he talked, the way he moved, everything about him made her knees go weak and a billion butterflies fluttering around in her stomach. Whenever Bill would look at her he would give her a smile or a wink, which made Hermione blush interesting shades of red.
When she was alone with Ginny, the younger girl gave her a knowing look.
"So what do you think of my two eldest brothers?" She asked casually.
Hermione turned red immediately, "Ahem they are nice", she stuttered.
"Indeed they are," the redhead sounded amused now, "especially Bill, don't you think?"
"Yeah, Bill is nice too," Hermione silently berated herself for sounding like a complete idiot.
"Oh, come on, I've seen the way you've looked at him the whole evening", Ginny teased, "hey wouldn't it be cool if you married one of my brothers, we would be real sisters then."
"Good night, Ginny." Hermione took long that night to fall asleep, thoughts of a certain Weasley kept her awake.
Those two nights before the Quidditch World Cup should be the last in a long time that Hermione felt truly carefree and content, just sitting in the garden of the Burrow, feeling the warm breeze of the summer night on her skin and the smell of grass in the air, while observing the handsome wizard sitting opposite to her.
Hermione kept observing Bill for the rest of his stay (with more subtlety she hoped); she absorbed everything he said and felt elated whenever he winked or smiled at her (in total 14 winks and 18 smiles, yes she counted and documented each and everyone of them).
Ginny was delighted as well, "finally you understand what I am going through in regards to Harry."
Hermione's only answer was a frown
5 years later…
It was one o'clock in the morning when Bill entered the kitchen of his childhood home to nick the last two pieces of apple pie before flooing back to his own flat. Sitting at the table, hair in a messy bun, was Hermione scribbling furiously on a piece of parchment.
"Hey what are you doing here this late?" He asked surprised.
Hermione startled slightly, then mumbled "I'm making pro and con lists".
"What pro and con lists?" Bill asked curiously.
She looked up at him with a desperate expression on her face. "I just don't know what I should do, there are just too many careers I'm interested in. What if I make the wrong choice, what if I won't live up to everyone's expectation?" She wailed.
"Oh, OK slow down, first of all you shouldn't care too much about what other people expect of you and besides I'm sure you will surpass everyone's expectations. And don't worry, you'll make the right decision." His voice was soft but he couldn't quite keep the amusement out of his eyes.
"How can you know that?" she whispered.
"Because I'm going to help you make the right choice", after seeing the uncertainty in her eyes he said slightly deflated, "that is, if you want my help."
"Oh Bill would you really do that for me? Of course I want your help"
So they spent the rest of the night talking. Talking about what mattered the most to Hermione (helping those in need) and what she enjoyed doing the most (research), among other things. Three hours and two glasses of wine later she finally gathered the courage to ask him about his career, she really wanted to learn more about him but has always been too shy to talk to him.
When Hermione went to bed at 5 o'clock in the morning she knew two things, she was going to study magical law… and she still was desperately in love with her ex-boyfriend's eldest brother.
What she didn't know yet was that this should be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
6 years later…
Bill was surprised when the ugly monster called jealousy started raging in his chest when Hermione started dating a colleague from work. He had never been jealous of the guys she had been with before; he'd even stopped seeing her as merely Ron's brainy friend; for a while, he had even confused his feelings as platonic - more like another family member. But, it was painfully obvious now, however, that he had deluded himself. Without him realizing he saw her as something entirely different.
So he was quite pleased when they broke up a little over a year later, though he wanted to hex the guy to a bloody pulp for cheating on Hermione. She was in a pensive mood after the breakup she didn't seem devastated or too upset, simply absent minded and seemingly mulling over something. He wanted to ask her what was on her mind but he didn't dare to, they had started a tentative friendship after he helped her with her choice of career. At first they had talked more and more during family reunions, then they had started to meet for lunch and from there they had started to spend more time together, like old friends.
They talked about their jobs, things they had read, people they knew, but never about anything too personal.
He knew how she drank her coffee, knew how passionate she was about the job and how frustrated with most of her colleagues, he knew that she bit her lip when she was nervous and how compliments made her uncomfortable.
But he didn't know what she looked like in the morning after waking up, he didn't know if she wanted a family or not, he didn't know why it hadn't worked out with Ron or in fact any of her Exes, he didn't know how her life had been before Hogwarts, he didn't know what exactly had happened during their seventh year when they were hunting for Hocruxes, he didn't know what her biggest fear and her deepest desire was and he had no idea why she would look at him sometimes with so much sadness in her eyes.
Their friendship continued the way it was before; they spent time together talking about this and that without saying anything at all.
7 months later…
Bill was standing in his kitchen, using every swear word he could think of. He was trying to cook dinner for Hermione and it wasn't turning out the way it was supposed to. It was his birthday present for her, a homemade dinner.
He had thought back to the book his Dad had given him when he was still in Hogwarts about how to woo witches. One advice had been to give personal, thoughtful and creative presents. It had seemed like a good idea but right now he cursed himself for not giving her tickets to the theatre or a scarf or something like that.
He was putting an extra thick layer of chocolate icing on the cake to cover up its rather crooked form when his eyes fell on the clock. This led to another flood of swear words , since he realized he had only exactly 18 minutes to finish what he was doing, set the table and take a shower. Even for a wizard this was barely enough time.
17 Minutes and 53 seconds later, Bill closed the last button on his shirt and cast a last glance over his living room and the table he had set, the candles were burning and his apartment was clean. With a sigh of relief he awaited her arrival. At exactly 7:01 Hermione stepped out of his fire place.
A few hours later, after they had enjoyed pasta with burned tomato sauce, crooked chocolate cake and one and a half bottles of wine they sat rather close together on his couch.
They were both a little tipsy and all of a sudden Hermione asked; "Why did you and Fleur break up?"
He was surprised, they've never talked about Fleur before, in fact his whole family avoided speaking of her. He had been devastated after she left and he thought that he would never get completely over it. Now, however, he realized that while he was thinking of her, their time together and their break up, he felt… nothing.
He thought carefully about what he wanted to say: "She was so young, she had just finished school when we started dating. I guess my Mum was right, we did rush everything too much and she wasn't ready yet for such a big commitment. As sudden and passionate as her love was as suddenly and completely it was gone, apparently it didn't mean much to her."
She just nodded her head and stared at the flames in the fireplace.
"Why didn't it work out between you and Ron?" He asked tentatively.
Hermione shook herself out of her reverie, searching for words: "It's just he wasn't", there she stopped herself before she started again: "we are too different, it felt like being with my brother, it just didn't feel right." That was at least partially the truth.
Now it was his time to just nod and stare into the fire.
He was startled when Hermione slammed her glass on the table after she had just taken the last sip.
"Damn it, you want to know why it didn't work out with Ron, or in fact with any of my ex-boyfriends, Bill Weasley? Because he wasn't you, because none of them were you, because I kept comparing them to you and they couldn't live up to you, because all the time I was with them I was really wishing to be with you. I've been in love with you since the first time I saw you in your mother's kitchen, I know it's silly, but that's how it is."
She was crying by now and her voice had risen an octave. "I can't do this anymore, I can't keep pretending I feel nothing but friendship for you, it's not enough for me." She hid her face in her hands and kept crying.
Bill was stunned he had no idea that she felt that way. It took him a moment to let everything sink in. And she misinterpreted his silence, she got up and started to get ready to leave.
"What are you doing?" Bill asked confused.
"I'm leaving, this is embarrassing enough already." She sounded very tired now.
"Don't you want to hear what I have to say?" Bill stood up from the couch and slowly moved towards her.
"I'm not sure do I?" She looked questioningly at him.
"Hermione, I had no idea you felt that way, I too, have felt far more then friendship for you for a while now.
"And why have you never done anything about it?" She whispered.
"You were with that jerk Henry."
"That was more than half a year ago."
"Yeah, well I didn't want to take advantage of you and then I wanted to give you time to get over him." It sounded so lame to him now.
He was in front of her now they were as close as possible without touching.
"Ever the gentleman", she teased, "so are you gonna kiss me or what?"
Slowly he wrapped his arms around her and then planted a gentle kiss on her lips that soon became more passionate and frantic. It was as if after waiting so long they couldn't bare to wait any longer to finally touch and feel and taste the other one.
The next morning was the first time he saw her waking up beside him, her eyes were swollen, her hair was a mess and she was hungover, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
Some of his questions were answered now and he had a lifetime to find out about the others and even more.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Remember, reviews make me smile (at least the nice ones) ;)