This story is dedicated to my "Super Awesome No-Pens Pen Pal" Inspirement. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
This isn't my BEST story ever, but I hope he likes it!
Hermione POV
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. I heard the alarm go off at the usual time and groaned. Ron and I had been married for almost a year now and we had been living under the same roof for seven times that amount, but I still wasn't used to Ron leaving for Auror training. He set his alarm for five-thirty every morning and expected me to get up with him.
"Ron, get the alarm." I mumbled, already half asleep. The blankets moved out from underneath me as the result of Ron getting up, but then they were yanked off of me completely.
"Ah!" Ron started to laugh when he saw me fall off the bed and land painfully on my rear end.
"S'not funny." I grumbled, and standing up, I realized Ron was already showered and dressed. He must have gotten up before the alarm went off.
"Come on Hermione, you don't want to lay around in bed all day!" He seemed pretty happy about something but I shrugged it off as some silly Auror thing he was going to do today.
"I'm up, I'm up." I said yawning, making my way to the bathroom.
Once I was showered, dressed, and looking reasonably decent, I walked in to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of pumpkin juice.
"Morning, honey." Ron said smiling at me from the table.
I rolled my eyes. It was dark enough outside that it should still be considered nighttime.
I looked over at the Muggle calendar waiting to see what sort of Auror training Ron had scheduled for this week (I wanted to know if I would be cleaning up cuts and bruises or making potions to stop uncontrollable laughing) but something else caught my eye.
"Ron, what's the date today?" I asked him.
"The 22nd?"
"You're not sure?" My eyebrows rose. If I was correct (and most of the time, I was correct about a lot of things) today was our first anniversary. And Ron didn't remember.
"No, not really." He looked up at the clock and jumped up. "I'm going to be late if I don't get a move on." He swung his bag over his shoulder while I folded my arms.
"Are you SURE you have to go to work today? You didn't take off for something? Something important?"
He seemed to think about it for a second. "Nope. Bye, Hermione!" he kissed me on the cheek and with a loud crack, he was gone.
Ron's POV
That was close! I thought to myself. I had arrived safe and sound in my office and I hadn't gotten splinched. Looking down and the bandage wrapped around my upper arm, I shuddered. Last week I wasn't focusing and lost most of my skin there. When I set down my bag on my desk, a dark haired man with glassed and a lightning bolt scar on his forehead walked in.
"Did she suspect?" He asked, sitting down in the chair opposite me.
"About the party? Nah, she seemed ready to send another pack of canaries at me though when she thought I had forgotten our anniversary." Harry chuckled at the memory of our sixth year.
"I already talked to the boss. He knows that if Hermione calls, you're 'very busy with work and can't possibly talk at this particular time.'"
"Great! Wait, where's –"
I was interrupted by a large crack and a familiar red headed girl appearing in my office.
"I'm here! What did I miss?" A very pregnant Ginny walked over to my desk and sat down in the chair next to Harry.
"Never mind." I said and Ginny started to laugh.
"What? Afraid I wouldn't' show?" Harry frowned.
"You know, you really shouldn't be apparating. If you were to get splinched in your condition, you could hurt the baby."
"Harry," Ginny replied looking a little mad. "Do YOU want to be the mother? Do YOU want to lug around this child for nine months? Do YOU want to give birth to it in the most painful way possible? No? I didn't think so!"
Harry sighed at the remark, but gave up.
"Okay, now that we're all here, we should go meet up with the family at the Burrow."
Harry and I apparated out of the room while Ginny walked over the fireplace, grumbling loudly.
Hermione's POV
A few hours later, I had finished working on my report for the ministry on Muggle and Wizard communication and was sitting in front of the fire place reading Pride and Prejudice. Ron never liked that book or the movie, so I took to opportunity to read it when he was gone as to avoid comments.
I sighed and put my book down on the table next to me. How could Ron forget our anniversary? He said that he had been waiting all his life to meet someone like me, but now it seems I just wasn't as important as his Auror training.
Staring into the fireplace was going to burn my retinas but it was so pretty, almost hypnotic. Ron's face seemed to swim in and out of the fire and I sighed. Wait, that really WAS Ron's face.
"Ron?" I got down on my hands and knees to look at him. "Is everything all right? Why are you calling me through floo powder?" Ron had a miniature coughing fit, apparently through inhaling ashes, and then started to explain.
"I need you to come down to my office okay? There's been a slight-" I heard a crash and Ron made a face. "-Accident." He continued. "I'm not really sure how to fix it and neither is Harry. Could you come and help? But don't apparate! That might make things worse."
"Sure, Ron." I said running to get my wand. "I'll be right there."
Ron's POV
I got out of the fireplace and shook ash out of my hair.
"Okay, she's coming." I spoke into a Muggle felly-tone.
"Good! Just make sure you meet her in the fireplace that way you can turn her around and head here." Harry said to me. We have everything set up, and the Grangers just arrived."
"I can hear the floo powder working through the fireplace now." I hung up the felly-tone and jumped back into the fireplace, hoping that I hadn't missed her.
Hermione's POV
No matter how many times I've traveled with floo powder, it still felt strange. I could see little glimpses of hundreds of homes in an instant. I loved magic!
Okay, almost there I thought to myself. Just another block and I'll be able to see if Ron's still employed… I forced that thought out of my head. There was no way I was thinking the worst. Ron was with Harry, it probably wasn't anything serious. What trouble could they have gotten into if they had each other? As soon as I thought of that I willed the floo powder to get me there quickly. Thinking back to our Hogwarts year, if Harry and Ron were in the same room together, ANYTHING could happen.
I felt a tug on my arm. Great, I'm caught to someone else's fireplace! Turning around to unhook my sweater, I saw that it was Ron who was holding my arm. He pulled out a pinch of Floo powder and said something that I couldn't here. Instantly, we had changed directions and were speeding in a different direction.
Ron's POV
I grabbed Hermione's arm and yelled "The Burrow!" as loud as I could, but hoping to dear lord that she hadn't heard me. And that all this ash in my lungs wasn't going to kill me. Hermione looked really worried. Maybe I should have gone with another cover up story.
Hermione's POV
I landed face first on hard stone. That's funny; I didn't know Ron got a new fireplace. This one was bigger, but older and it seemed oddly familiar…
"Ron?" I looked around and saw him lying face first next to me. "Ron! Are you okay?" I pulled him up into a sitting position.
"I'm fine." He said and brushed the ash off of his face. "Come on, we better hurry."
"Wha-, wait Ron, why are we here? We need to get back to your office!"
"Just trust me alright?" he tugged my arm and I walked out the back door with him.
He spun me around when I got outside so that I was facing the house.
"Do you know what today is, Hermione?" he asked.
"The 22nd, but Ron we need to get back and fix what you broke because I know I heard a crash when I…..when I…." I stopped rambling for a minute and looked at Ron's face. He was smiling.
"Nothing happened did it?" I asked him. He nodded his head and smiled again.
"You were right about that, but what happened on the 22nd?" Realization hit me as soon as he spoke. He did remember.
"It's our anniversary." He beamed but seemed to be looking over my shoulder.
"HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!" The entire Weasley family was standing in the yard that now was covered in tables filled with food, and even my parents were here.
Tears leaked out of the sides of my eyes.
"You remembered."
"Of course I did Hermione! You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and as soon as I knew you were the one, I wanted to be with you forever. You gave me that privilege."
I started to cry harder now and Ron brought me in for a hug.
"I love you Ron."
"I love you too Hermione. Always."