I started writing this just about two years ago and have since come to dislike it, I'll be going through and editing it a bit, but still if you're reading this please don't judge my current writing by it.
You Suck
Harry had never been romantic, a noble git who would die for her, sure, but romantic? Not in the least. So really, in hindsight she should have seen this coming. Well maybe not this exactly, but something similar, something so completely and utterly unromantic that she wanted to cry. She might have to, had she not been the younger sister of six boys who'd berated all such actions out of her, until she had no hope of ever being a normal girl again. Even for Harry though, it had been a little over the top as far as the whole utterly and entirely and completely unromantic thing went.
They had been sitting in a café, a muggle café in fact, at four o'clock in the morning. Harry had been on his fourth cup of coffee, black, two sugars, and they'd been eating pie. She couldn't recall what kind of pie they'd been eating though; she remembered every single detail of that night, except for the pie. She remembered that the waitress' name was Sherrill, and she'd been wearing a pale green shirt, that there were exactly seventeen scratches on the white table, that there was no one else there, and that the red seats were exactly the same shade as the scarf Luna got from Neville at Christmas (and hadn't taken off since). She couldn't remember what kind of pie they ate though. She knew she could probably just ask Harry and find out, but she kind of liked the idea of the mystery. It was romantic, just about the only romantic thing that night.
They had been eating at four in the morning, at a muggle café of all places, because Harry had needed an escape from life, from Auror training, fan mail, reporters and funerals. Ginny found it ironic that the muggle world now served as a refuge, when so many years ago it had been the place he took refuge from, but it might have been just her.
She'd come with him because, well frankly she didn't have anything better to do, and she still was having trouble sleeping away from him, after that night, after she'd seen his body, being carried in that sick parade. So she sat, drinking hot chocolate (she'd never really enjoyed coffee), watching him rub his face frustratedly, while resisting the urge to fix his ever messy hair.
Then, somehow, she'd managed to get whipped cream on her forehead, not even her nose, her forehead. So Harry had stopped, halfway through his rant about how if a reporter called him Voldemort-Vanquisher one more time he would snap, and what was up with the wizarding world and hyphens anyway, would it really ruin a name if it wasn't hyphenated, to laugh at her. If he had been some romantic Prince Charming, the one that little girls dream about, he would have kissed it off, or even just wiped it away, but Harry wasn't Prince Charming, he was Voldemort-Vanquisher, so he laughed.
"You suck Potter," she can remember saying that vividly, he had just laughed harder.
"You know Gin," he had said, still chuckling, "I think I might love you," Ginny had just frowned at him, forgetting about the cream on her head,
"You still suck," and he laughed again, before ordering another coffee, he hadn't slept in thirty-two hours (that had been his excuse anyway.)
"And yet, I still love you, despite your inexplicable desire to insult me when any chance you're given." She can remember the adorable smile he was fighting to keep off his face as he said it, so she smiled; arguing with Harry was one of her favorite pastimes,
"Someone's got to do it, the media won't, and everybody else is scared of you, I can't have you getting a big head, can I?" He laughed again; glad, for that moment, of his insomnia,
"Yep, I'm definitely in love with you." Ginny had smiled then,
"For some unknown reason, I love you to, even if you suck." He had smiled then, reaching into his pocket for a reason, unknown to her at the time, before saying, rather bluntly, and completely unromantically,
"So Gin, despite the fact that I suck, will you marry me?" She remembered how hard she had choked on the mouthful of too sweet hot chocolate then, while Harry struggled between worry and laughter.
"No. You suck," she had answered, she could remember his crestfallen face so vividly, as her uncaring façade broke down, she had smiled again, rolling her eyes as she punched his arm,
"Of course I'll marry you, you idiotic prat," and he had smiled too, and for a second he didn't look like a tired, jaded, Auror in training, he just looked happy, the image of him, looking so young and carefree still warmed her heart, not that she'd ever admit it of course.
"Here, catch," he had said, tossing her the ring, her ring, which she caught with the practiced ease of a chaser, smiling as she pushed it on her finger. He grinned as he gently rubbed the whipped cream that had still been on her forehead off with his thumb. Of all the ways he could possibly have proposed, he had done it at four in the morning, at a muggle café, and had chucked the ring at her, in a so unbelievably Harry way,
"You know what Potter?"
"What"
"You suck."