Disclaimer: I don't own it. I looked everywhere too- I even tried ebay. Shockingly, JKR's not selling, just yet.
Ron Weasley, dark wizard catcher extraordinaire and legend in his own right, was terrified. And not of the normal things, like everyone else- bills and illness and heights and death. Or even the abnormal things, as his trade would tend to suggest, like dark magic and evil and generally bad things.
No, nothing like that. Ronald Weasley was afraid of marriage.
Well, to be fair to Ron, that's not terribly accurate either. He actually thought that marriage, in the right circumstances, would be a lot of fun. (A lot more fun, for instance, than spending the rest of his life explaining to his mother why he was living in sin.)
It was actually the proposing bit that scared him (the flowers, the romantic dinner, the bended knee- he was sure to mess it up and set her hair, or the restaurant, on fire. Really though, what are the chances of something like that happening to the same wizard twice? He just wasn't being realistic), and more specifically the idea that the object of his affections might say no. She could be unreasonable, sometimes, and he was only too well aware that if she made up her mind about something there would be no changing it. She liked to say it was determination but he called it stubborn. Takes one to know one, he supposed.
Of course, if he'd asked any of his family or friends or hell, even his colleagues or some random people in the street, they all would have tried to reassure him. But he didn't ask- he was certain he knew what they would say- preferring instead to mull on the idea for days, playing with the (small) diamond ring -it had to be practical, so she could wear it all the time, he'd argued, and she wasn't really into flashy, so small really was the best option. Small, but perfectly formed. He hoped- that's what the girl in the jewellers had told him anyway.
He'd been thinking about it for a while, making trips into Muggle London to look at rings (she'd appreciate it, right? That he'd tried to include her heritage in this? Because he could have gone to a Wizarding jeweller far more easily and it probably would have cost less too, what with the 'you-helped-save-the-world-would-you-like-that-gift-wrapped' discount) more times than the girl in the shop would like to remember. He was fairly certain that, the last time he'd called in (and he'd actually finally bought the damn ring) she'd been terrified he was going to propose to her.
He'd also been spending quite a lot of time trying- actually trying- to figure out ways to trick her into saying yes.
If he could somehow get her to accept, she'd never back out. He knew that. It wouldn't be ideal, of course, but he thought he could live with it.
The alternative, he'd realised, was to actually sit her down, prepared for the worst and hoping for the best and perhaps with a bottle of firewhiskey on hand just in case (either way), and ask the bloody question. People did this everyday- hell; they got married everyday, never mind taking the first step toward it. It was funny how, even after all their years together, she could still make him as nervous as a fourteen year old without even trying. Without even knowing it was happening. Damn her and her feminine wiles. She would have laughed her arse off, he knew, at the merest suggestion that she even had feminine wiles- that's what was so wiley.
Instead of trying either of those, he was content to watch TV. If there was one thing that he really appreciated about Muggles (apart from shop assistants with the patience of saints) it was television- and especially nature documentaries for some reason. As a result of his obsession, and it was definitely an obsession as they had every single satellite channel dedicated to the bloody things, his beloved knew far more than she had ever wanted to about spider monkeys, fruit bats, and his personal favourite- spiders. Sometimes she wondered what it said about him that his favourite programmes to watch were the ones that frightened him the most. (It made for entertaining evenings in, though, as Ron flinched every single time a bloody spider came onto the screen and screams were not unheard of. It's a wonder their neighbours hadn't called the police yet, to find out who was hurting who in 4B.) So, there they were, curled up together on the sofa beside the fire on one lazy, completely unremarkable, Saturday afternoon and the question just… slipped out. And not the right question, either, because it couldn't be that simple, in the end. But at least he'd done something. At least he'd made the first attempt. That was progress, right?
"Hermione? If I were to ask you to marry me, what would you say?" She turned her head to look at him, eyes wide.
"Seriously?" There was a tremor in her voice that he couldn't quite identify and it made him (even more) nervous. He nodded, yes. He was serious.
"I suppose then, if you were to ask, I'd have to say yes." He grinned, the Hippogriffs in his stomach disappearing in an instant, and she smiled shyly back, blushing just a little.
"I may have to ask sometime then, eh?" Her smile turned from shy to wry then and she nodded, leaning over to kiss him briefly on the lips.
"Don't wait too long, okay? I've been waiting long enough already." Laughed, pressing his lips against hers for another brief kiss. "And I know you got that bloody ring more than a month ago now, and I know exactly where it is, so if you don't put it on my finger soon, I'll do it myself." Determined, she'd call it, but he still thought stubborn. He should have known.
A/N: Fluff. Pure fluff. You gotta love it.