A/N: Written as a holiday gift for sygurl on livejournal. Enjoy!
)O(
She had her back to him, but as he walked towards her, he thought it was all for the better. He didn't know if he would have the nerve to ask her if she was actually looking at him. He could just say it, do it, to her back.
It was a nice back. Even though she spent a lot of her time bending over books, Hermione always managed to keep her spine straight as she did so. That must have been because of her parents telling her to do it all the time when she was little. They were involved in medicine, weren't they?
He was just a foot away from her now, but as Ron took another step, he felt himself start to slowly slide away. Hermione was getting further and further away, and so he flung him arms out in front of him and tried, desperately, to run back to her.
He couldn't do it. His feet weren't working properly, and he was moving so quickly away from her now that he doubted whether she would hear him even if he shouted.
The image of her shoulder blades imprisoned by the shirt she was wearing, and the brown hair spilling over her shoulders and frizzing around the top of her head: it haunted him with its aloofness. He would never do it now. It was hopeless.
Just as he was about to close his eyes and give up, she turned around. There was something odd about her, something different he couldn't quite put his finger on.
(Maybe she was wearing makeup and would be upset if he didn't compliment her on it. You never knew with girls…)
"Hello, Ron," she said, a smirk playing around her face.
"Willyoumarryme?!" the words tumbled out of his mouth, and he stretched out an arm to show her the little box that would prove he had planned this. Fumbling, he opened it, revealing an empty space where the ring should have been.
"No…" he breathed, staring hard at the box as if he could will the ring back into being if only he tried hard enough.
Hermione laughed, high and cold. "Is this a joke, Ronald? Did you seriously believe that I would agree to marry you, even if you did have something to give me?" For a moment, the perfectly smooth skin of her brow creased as she stared at him in disbelief.
His head jerked back to look at her, appalled. "No…"
The picture of her laughing at him with not a smidgen of remorse stuck in his mind even as he woke up, gasping for air. He was shivering.
He looked over to the other side of the bed and saw Hermione, snoring away happily with a smile adorning her face. She dug her head into his arm a little more and gripped his hand in one of hers.
It was all right. Of course it was all right. She loved him and he loved her, and even if she didn't, Hermione would never act like that.
Reassured, Ron turned over on his side and tried to go back to sleep.
He would ask her tomorrow, he decided. They were going to go for a picnic on the beach anyway, so she would probably think he had planned this all along.
She didn't have to know that he had been planning this for months now. The tiny box on the top of his wardrobe was starting to get dusty.
He would ask her tomorrow.
)O(
Fin