He was spinning. Spinning faster than he believed should be possible, over four different axes. 'Wait… four axes?' He thought, 'There are only three dimensions and I end up in this horrible whirlpool of color getting togered about in more different ways than should rightly be possible. That's confirmation that my typical luck is holding out at least; sometimes it really sucks being a Potter.'
He looked about again seeing the shifting eddies of violently bright colors sweeping around him faster and faster and had an amusing thought pop into his head, 'I wonder if this is what it feels like to go for a ride in old Bumblemore's tumble dryer?' He laughed at that, inwardly anyway it's rather hard to laugh outwardly when you haven't got a body to move any air with, or even any air around to move about if you had one. He wished desperately for a pair of eyelids not realizing they'd do him little good with no eyes to cover. He never thought to be grateful that he had no inner ears.
Suddenly everything stopped. He was still stuck in floaty, bodiless, four-dimensional wonky color land but the colors were now fixed and he was no longer spinning. For that at least he was thankful. For what he reckoned was about a second anyway, he found it quite hard to judge time in this place, then he was suddenly in the most terrible agony he'd ever felt which, considering how many times he'd been subjected to Voldemort's Cruciatus, was quite a lot of pain indeed.
"GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH put me back in Bumblemore's dryer! Anything but this!" He screamed as he crumpled to his knees, forearms firmly clenched to his ears.
"Err, Harry? You alright mate?"
"Ron? How did you get here?"
"It's my wedding mate. I'm kinda required to be here ya know, you're the one who just portkeyed in through the wards screaming something about Dumbledore."
Harry opened his eyes 'Thank you sweet mercy for giving me back my eyelids' and looked up at his best mate. "I did?" His brow furrowed and he chewed at his bottom lip, an expression all those gathered there were familiar but thought looked rather out of place on that particular face.
"Harry James Potter!"
His eyes snapped over to his best friend in the world the second he heard her voice, the person that he now remembered he'd come back for. Seeing her there in front of him, alive and whole, young and vibrant, his features instantly crumpled and his eyes began to prickle with the beginnings of tears.
"Just what do you think you're doing? It's customary for the best man to show up before the ceremony you know!"
'Before the ceremony?' Had he heard that right? 'Am I really too late? Have I missed my chance again?' The tears began to flow. "So it's over then? I missed it? You already married him?"
"We're almost done. You really cut it close. Now honestly Harry are you going to come up here and stand by your friend or just sit there all day? We've already run dreadfully far behind schedule waiting for you." She cast a small smile at him and his heart soared. It had been so very long since he'd gotten to see that smile, any smile, or even any emotion at all on her face. "Now come on, get up here. You made it for the most important bit anyway. I can yell at you for your tardiness later." There was that smile again, that smile that galvanized his heart, set him so surely on his course and willed him into action.
"I'm not too late then." Harry couldn't help but break out into his own trademark crooked grin. He stood and made his way slowly up to the altar, flower petals still sticking to his robes from where he'd landed in the aisle. To the perplexment of everyone assembled he didn't walk over and take George's spot directly next to Ron. Rather, staring straight into her eyes the whole way, he walked straight to Hermione and grabbed her hands up in his.
Rich honey-brown eyes met teary shimmering emeralds and an azure light enveloped them and it was like they were cordoned off in their own little pocket of space, free of all outside interferences that simply flowed on around them.
"Hermione" he began, "I'm sorry. I've been incredibly stupid and blind and thoughtless, but I want you know something. I came here to tell you something. "It's you. It's always been you. It always will be you. I love you." Her eyes shot wide open but her gaze didn't waver. He continued, "I will always love you and I'm sorry about being such a right awful git as to take this long to tell you but it took me losing you to make me realize what I really felt." More confusion crossed her features and she moved to open her mouth but the question fell silently into oblivion. "I brought you something and I'd like you to put it on. Okay?" He said while pulling a small velvet box out of his pocket. Hermione's eyes shot open wider still, wider than he'd ever seen them before as her brow sprinted to its upward limit.
Outside of their little pocket of peace a storm was raging, a thunderous storm, fueled by corrupt dreams and illicit desire. Molly Weasley was on the warpath. She saw the future she had so carefully sculpted for her children being torn apart before her very eyes and she saw red. She did what she does best, she got loud and she ranted. "How dare that boy interrupt my Ronniekins wedding? Doesn't he realize how hard I worked on this? How long I've been planning this? Who does he think he is and what does he think he's doing? He has no right barging in like this!"
The entire wedding party and all guests assembled could hear every word being spoken inside the pocket, despite Molly's efforts, which would have been sufficient to drive a tornado running the other direction in any normal situation.
Ron looked on incredulously; he hoped desperately this wasn't what he thought it was even as he got redder and redder. He couldn't let himself believe his best friends would do this to him.
Ginny stood shell shocked, in a state of utter disbelief, completely unable to function.
Luna stood serenely daydreaming of another expedition to Sweden.
George was doing his best to be upset for brother and not let himself think that this was the most utterly brilliant prank in history.
Arthur and the rest of the Weasley men weren't sure just what to think. They were still a little surprised this wedding had actually been going to happen, but were also sad for Ron who just never could seem to catch a break.
Minerva was making a valiant effort to keep the glee she was feeling from being displayed plainly on her face.
Robert and Jean Granger were not making any such effort.
Hagrid was sobbing and muttering, "Knew it I did. Knew it ah' along."
Poppy Pomfrey wore her normal neutral countenance but on the inside she was doing cartwheels and her lungs were bursting with song.
Muriel Prewett was a little sad on Ronald's behalf and kept an upset look on her face and moving to comfort her favorite niece Molly. She knew what would happen if that Potter boy was pulling a ring out of his pocket. Secretly she was hoping she'd get yet another chance to display her Tiara, even if it was on the same girl again. Having such a beautiful piece on her head really did distract from her skinny ankles. Muriel couldn't understand why the girl hadn't selected a full length gown.
Teddy Lupin didn't know what was going on exactly but he was clapping his hands enthusiastically and shifting his hair to match the colors in that pretty light around his godfather. The pillow he'd been holding forgotten on the ground.
Andromeda Tonks was smiling with almost as much enthusiasm as the Grangers. She'd hoped the godparents of her grandson would get together. Teddy would be able to have a wonderful home with them, and she only wanted what was best for Teddy. Andromeda had been stricken early with arthritis and thought she would have a much more comfortable time as a visiting grandmother than she did currently as a full time parent for a toddler who by all counts was even more rambunctious and accident prone than his mother. It would be best for Teddy to live in a place with two parents who both so obviously loved and adored him.
Fleur Weasley was silently but very much relieved; she knew true love when she saw it, even if the people involved couldn't see it for themselves. She'd been trying to nudge the man who saved her little sister to realize what he felt since the final battle. She felt she owed it to him but she had been consistently rebuffed in her attempts by her female in-laws, the younger of whom had gone back to calling her that awful name again.
Inside the eye of Hurricane Molly, still wrapped in the azure light and blissful tranquility it afforded Hermione couldn't believe what was happening. Harry had taken what seemed to be a portkey and landed himself in the aisle of her wedding screaming some nonsense and giving her a horrible fright. He'd then realized where he was, 'Why didn't he know where he was?' and his eyes hadn't left hers since. She couldn't even remember him blinking. Now here he was standing in front of her on her wedding day holding her hands in his, proclaiming his undying love for. She'd dreamed of this happening since she was twelve years old but in her dream she'd always been at her wedding marrying Harry. That was the only problem here, she was here marrying Ron and then Harry goes and pulls this. 'He never was one to do something by half-measures' She thought and the smile slowly crept back onto her face. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and as the smell of the freshly manicured lawns of the burrow, Ron's shampoo, and for some odd reason parchment drifted into her nose there was an immediate calming effect, she knew what she was here to do.
Resolutely she began to speak, "Harry I really don't think this is the approp… " she began but her voice trailed off as soon as she opened her eyes and met his again. She became horribly conflicted when her eyes locked with his and suddenly she was aware of just how much she disliked feeling unsure of something.
Harry was smiling at her sadly as he opened the box and pulled out not the ring their audience was either hoping for or dreading of but a pendant with a beautiful silver lily on a slender silver chain. "My mother's" he said in reply to her questioning look, "I think if you put it on things will be a lot clearer for you. My father had this made because he suspected Snape was up to something. Snape was a genius at potions you know and had rather strong, if unrequited, feelings towards my mother. My father, smart man that he was, wouldn't put anything past Snape. It's enchanted, it helps counteract the effects of compulsion potions." He slipped the necklace around her neck and fastened the clasp, a task made much easier due to her wearing her hair up in a silky knot. 'I don't even want to know how much SleakEazy's that took.'
Hermione's eyes sprang wide open again before narrowing in anger and focusing on the man she had been about to marry, the reason for the smell of parchment now ringing crystal clear as the realization washed over her. Ron though wasn't quailing under her gaze and looking guilty like she thought he'd be but rather was looking quite befuddled himself. She knew she exactly what had happened to her and was now getting quite furious that someone would do this to her.
Harry saw her anger nearing its boiling point and decided to cut her off before she developed a full head of steam and started throwing hexes. "Hermione it wasn't him."
Her eyes sprang back to Harry and she pierced him with a suspicious gaze. "Oh? Who was it then?" She asked her voice dripping icy flames. "If you know it wasn't him dosing me with that vile potion then you know who it was Harry Potter and you are going to tell me right this instant!" Her tone brooked no argument.
Unnoticed by the two who were no longer wrapped in the pocket of sound proofing light Hurricane Molly had blown itself out. Teddy, saddened that the pretty light show had gone away changed his fingernails varying shades blue to match his hair and watched them instead.
Harry, unlike Ron, did quail a little bit under her ferocious gaze. Rubbing the back of his head with one hand and looking a bit bashful he said, "I don't think I should tell you just now."
Hermione, if possible, looked even more furious, "And why exactly is that?"
"Err, well umm, you're, err, well you see, ah, you're rather upset at the moment."
"Harry Potter you haven't begun to see me upset!" She reached under her dress, causing Harry to go a bit red at the amount of leg revealed by the action.
When she pulled out her wand and leveled it at him the red shifted to green with what Minerva thought was truly alarming rapidity. 'Poor boy, he pours out his heart and soul and gets a wand drawn on him.' She let out a small chuckle and leaned over to whisper to Poppy, "So very much like his father. Do you think she'll put turnips in his ears?"
The matron laughed loudly at that, drawing the ire of the girl in the bridal dress onto herself. None present missed the relieved sigh that escaped Harry.
Hermione fixed the old healer with a gimlet eye the fierceness of which had not been seen since Minerva McGonagall had, quite literally, stumbled upon Sirius Black sans clothing in the Astronomy Tower at two A.M. with Miranda Fairmarch of Hufflepuff and Justine O'Grady of Ravenclaw. "And what, pray tell, is so amusing here?" Hermione asked, the icy flames reappearing in her tone.
Not one to be so easily flustered Poppy Pomfrey casually replied, "Minerva and I were just reminiscing about when James stood up on the Gryffindor table at the leaving feast when he was in 6th year and proclaimed his love for Lily. She hexed him until he looked like a veritable vegetable patch."
Hermione was now looking abashed as a new wave of realization washed over her.
Harry was looking even more nervous than when her wand had been between his eyes.
Ron was still as completely nonplussed as he had been since Harry took Hermione's hands.
Ginny yet remained locked in her earlier position, still unable or perhaps unwilling to fully comprehend what was happening.
George was thinking of what charms to use in Garden Gumdrops.
Bill, Percy, and Charlie were more bewildered than ever.
Arthur, a little quicker on the uptake than his sons, had his own angry stare leveled square onto his wife.
Molly was shifting between furious indignation and nervously shamefaced when she saw Arthur staring at her.
Hagrid was bawling harder than ever. His huge beard was becoming quite wet at this point.
Luna was still unconcernedly lost in a daydream, unsurprised by what was happening.
Robert, Jean, Minerva, Poppy, Andromeda, and Fleur were beaming widely in anticipation.
Muriel had abandoned rubbing Molly's back soothingly and was now herself working on the rather overfilled snifter of Brandy she'd been trying to offer.
Teddy was out of his seat and poking his finger at his grandmother's shoes. Which were starting to resemble misshapen cucumbers if weren't for the orange stripes running along them.
Hermione carefully moved her hand up to Harry's face, cupping his cheek. Their eyes met again and she told him what he came here hoping beyond all hope to hear. "I love you too Harry." As she leaned her mouth in toward his neither one of them noticed the raucous cheers or Molly's cry of indignation or Ginny snapping out of her trance and lunging towards them. In that moment as their lips touched they knew only the wonder of each other.