A/N: So I got this idear a while ago and decided to put pen to paper on it else risk losing my head in plot bunny induced madness. It's a chaptered affair, though it started out as a mere drabble on my LJ. Thanks goes out to a helpful word friend who gave me the real life setting - The Duke of Cambridge, an organic pub, and a tiny bit of surrounding North London - to use, because it applied 100% to what I have in my mind and, honestly, the food - and that blackcurrant vodka - sounds goddamn delicious.

Anyways, I'm rambling... enjoy the story! Reviews are lovely and more than welcome, as usual.

He really didn't know how he was going to wait the whole night without breaking out in sweat and mumbling monosyllabic responses, so Ron decided the best idea would be to just 'go with the flow' as they say. He'd stood up to trolls and werewolves - so what was making this so hard for him?

Words.

Words make it hard. Words are hard, he couldn't help but think. No matter what he said they would always be twisted and misconstrued, messed up by his mouth before he could process them and say the right thing. It somehow never made the relationship difficult, but going the next step would require a silver tongue - something Ron Weasley never prided himself on having. It was even worse when he was in public and people were expectant - and especially when Hermione was expectant and listening closely to everything he said. So, of course, he went and booked a date at a rather public, open gastropub that sidled along the busy lanes of backstreet London. She had fawned over the Duke of Cambridge ever since discovering it and had been, for the first time, happy to see Ron engorging himself on food. She was comfortable here, but…

His eyes flashed open abruptly at the sound of harsh snapping - Hermione's fingers were in front of Ron's face and she had a mixture of concern and laughter across her features. Everything seemed to come tumbling backward from his eager confidence and was now sitting squarely in a hole of nerves. Quite a few of them, too.

"Are you okay? Do you need a drink? You had an awfully long day..."

"Yeah, Hermione, I'm okay. I just need some food." She smirked and he laughed shakily, wondering where those old feelings were coming from. He hadn't been nervous in front of her in nearly two years, he hadn't sweat this hard since the first week of training, and he certainly never blinked as much in his entire lifetime as he was doing now. But those times were never really as difficult as this - somehow opening a box and asking a question was more difficult than jinxing a handful of Aurors.

He squirmed in the chair before a rather stocky, blonde waitress appeared seemingly out of thin air before them. Ron despised a great deal of the food that was offered at the Duke, he disliked the constant overflow of travelers and passerby, but the servers were, at least, half reasonable people and he had come here often enough with Hermione to get to know most of them. Glancing back down while Hermione finished her order, he was reminded of another item that made the place enjoyable.

"Any chance you've got the blackcurrant vodka in?" He doubted Hermione meant liquor when she mentioned a drink, but she only gave a snort when he asked the question. The first time Ron had tried the stuff he nearly vomited on the spot, but the tart aftertaste combined with the harsh and almost offensive alcohol made for a fairly satisfying, if vile, drink. That was, at least, until he took another gulp and the swill rushed through already sensitive taste buds and his brain burst into flames the next morning. It was then he decided it was his favorite drink.

"Indeed, we do." There was an awkward pause which Ron, now staring at nowhere in particular, seemed to miss. "I assume you'd like a meal with that as well?"

"Oh, yes. Erm, I'll just have uh… some water and the, uh, roast and gravy," he muttered while searching furiously for anything vaguely meat-based. The waitress shook her head and raised her eyebrow toward Hermione, who simply shrugged. Ron swore he would eventually decode what these silent exchanges meant, even if the knowledge at the end of the search would drive him completely mad. He didn't need to think of anything that might drain his already dwindling confidence, so he tried redirecting towards a different conversation. Anything would do.

"So, is there a reason you invited me here?" Hermione inquired. She had already beaten him to the punch and it was before he had even gotten something in his stomach. Food had been his linchpin and the easiest way to comfort his shaking hands, and she was getting way ahead of schedule.

"It's a nice night, isn't it? Minus the autumn chill, the people still parading down the bloody street, and snarky waitresses…"

"You were nearly drooling, Ron. I was a breath away from having to snap you out of another coma, myself." Hermione said, still with a hint of a smile on her face which certainly helped his shot nerves, "A 'nice night' doesn't explain why you took me out to the Duke before pay."

He rolled his eyes and noticed a twang of guilt from what she apparently thought was a wayward comment. It was true – the majority of the official 'dates' they went on were spurred on by Hermione and only when Ron had triple-checked his account and made sure his earnings were in for the week. The combination of financial awareness and blatant insecurity both annoyed and impressed her. It also didn't help when they both demanded to pay for their first bill – Ron on the grounds of being 'the man' with Hermione calling that idea 'gender bias' and chauvinistic. They fought but eventually gave in, reasoning on a split bill.

"Hey, I may not be a romantic, but that doesn't mean I can't treat you to something other than greasy burgers."

"Yes, and trust me I was pleasantly surprised you remembered that I like this place…" Hermione started.

"You drag me here every month," Ron interjected.

"… but you never once went to Gringotts or the bank on the way here. You never splurge, though I must say I am grateful you pay close attention to your finances-" Hermione's train was barely picking up momentum, but Ron's mind was elsewhere. Her voice trailed off as his mind started going to work.

You never splurge.

He knew what it literally meant, but the way she said it, the way she almost spat it out, seemed entirely unlike her. Perhaps Ron's conservative spending habits were beginning to bother her? Maybe she was tired of taking Ron to a familiar, boring and relatively cheap place, he thought. But then why, his defensive logic barged in, would she be 'grateful' and why would she be the one taking him there more often than not? And when was Hermione Granger ever anything but happy to see him paying attention?

"… and is there a reason you're staring at my chest like a Neanderthal?" Ron had again nodded off in thought, chewing on his lip and, apparently, staring rudely at Hermione.

"Oh sh- I mean… sorry." She had been comfortable with his increasingly vulgar swearing for a while, but when he started mentioning bits and how low they hung in public Hermione had applied a very harsh 'no-swearing' policy outdoors.

"It's fine, just make sure you're still looking in my direction next time you have a faint. I would be far less amused if it were some waitress you were ogling," Hermione said, glaring with an unconvincing brow and a half-smile spread on her face. His nerves were beyond help at this point – bouncing backward and forward between entirely destroyed and slightly hopeful – so Ron resigned himself to stop thinking so hard and just let his mouth do a bit of the walking. Before he could get a word in, and luckily that because he had just done another mental pass on commenting on her chest in public, the savory smell of beef wafted over to him. He had never been more thankful for an oncoming meal, or a drink, in his entire life.

The meals were laid beside them and Ron, never one to ask, hammered away at the meat in front of him – hoping that filling his stomach and afterwards absorbing as much alcohol as possible would help. It took him a few seconds of labored chewing to realize Hermione was laughing at him, and she was never a quiet with laughter.

"What?" He asked with a piece of cabbage still stuck on his fork just daring him to be eaten. He shoved it aside and skewered another potato. Hermione only kept laughing and before long he had to join her in fear of men in white suits and driving vans pulling her away from the Duke.

"It's nothing. Well, other than you attacking your meal like it were about to escape your plate," Hermione managed between stifled laughter. She turned back to her own plate and, to Ron's disgust, began picking at a glob of green and yellow mush. His face must have shown what he was thinking because she put her fork down and glared at him before saying, "First my chest, now my food. Is there anything else you'd like to scrutinize tonight?"

"Well, as much as I'd love to scrutinize your chest." And it was there that Ron's comment from earlier spilled out, earning him a woman shaking her head at him with an attractive blush sweeping across her cheeks, "I would like to know what the hell you're eating?"

"It's just cabbage and Stilton. It's the only thing on here I liked other than the mullet, but that's nearly twenty-"

"Did you look at the price of the roast? It's more expensive than the mullet, besides I've got the bill this time," Ron argued.

"I've told you what seems like a thousand times that we will split bills. Just because you're attentive towards your money…" She slowed down when Ron raised an eyebrow and the argument turned invalid rather quickly, "doesn't mean we all do."

"What is this really all about, Hermione, and I mean all of this money business? One minute you're telling me I never give you enough and then next you're trying to argue that I pay more attention than you?" Ron was taken by surprise by this sudden, and terrifying, conversation. His chest seized up with the realization that she was right and that this was leading into an argument – possibly a huge one if he didn't dive headfirst away from it.

"When did I ever say you don't 'give me enough?' And since when did I ever ask for anything?" Hermione's face contorted in confusion more than anger, but he could still feel the brewing heat.

"It's not about asking, you literally just told me that I 'never splurge.' So what did you mean by that, 'cause I only know one way to use that word," Ron said while trying to maintain the low voice they had adopted for heated arguments outside of the flat.

"Oh, you mean earlier? It's true, but I didn't mean it like that. When did I ever strike you as the girl who stared at baubles and begged for new dress robes?"

"You didn't, but that's not the point! What if I want to give you those things? I've got two years of savings stored up and I've been waiting for another excuse to spend on you besides the…" Ron's eyes widened and he opened and closed his mouth twice before taking in a deep breath and deciding that he had no other choice but to go ahead and do it now that he may just as well have pulled the small box from his trouser pocket. It was now or never.

Hermione had started to speak, no doubt catching his slip of the tongue, but Ron standing up from his chair must have surprised her because she stopped. When someone nearly half a foot taller than you stands up abruptly human nature and defensive reflexes kick in, and Hermione's were in full swing until he moved closer to her and pulled her up from her seat. He hadn't done much to prepare for this other than what he had gleaned from Mr. Granger, to whom he had gone both as a confidant and an advisor – for some reason he really liked Ron, but Ron suspected it may have had something to do with everything Hermione had explained to her parents about the war and about him protecting her. It also probably helped that he grew quite accustomed to Muggle football as well, even though half the time they argued about American football rather than watching proper football.

"Listen, and listen good, because I'm not going to be able to say this right if I drink that vodka." Ron nearly shouted, not caring that a cyclist had stopped and several of the neighboring diners were watching the strange events unfolding before them, "I did spend quite a bit on you just a week and a half ago and I reckon you'd like to know before you go rummaging through my paperwork."

Ron knew this was his cue so, shaking and feeling the effects of a good meal wearing off quickly, he tumbled downward onto one knee, pulling Hermione down into a lurch over him. He mumbled an apology as she gawked at him, not bothering to straighten her posture. He figured this was probably a good sign, though he argued internally it could just as easily be a horrible one.

"I… you see, I was kind of bothered by all of that money talk 'cause, well, I'm guessing you'd think this a better gift than… err, no I mean you'd like it better if…" Ron's hands were trembling and Hermione's limp fists were no help, "Oh, fuck it – Hermione, will you marry me?"

Words had never been harder, and asking a simple question had never been more difficult. He had lived before Hermione Granger and he figured that he would learn to live after her, but that thought was what made him to come to this monolithic task in the first place – he realized that he didn't want to live in a post-Hermione world. He just didn't like the ring of describing himself as 'single' anymore and he certainly didn't like thinking about his name attached to anyone else's. Two years of a normal relationship had taught him that – everything from the incredible downs to the earth-shattering highs, from nearly dying of exhaustion in training to coming back to her afterward, her smile unfailing and bright as ever, had changed him. The broomstick ride that always ended in catching the winning Snitch had repaired him in many ways so that he thought he could never be broken again.

That is, until Hermione Granger only furrowed her brow and with sad eyes shook her head in a definitive, and damning, negative.

A/N: DUN DUN DUHNNNN! To be continued... though I must admit that while I have the entire plot, and a majority of the dialogue, planned out, I don't have anything else written. Please be patient, because I'm in the processes of getting into actual coursework and pre-writing stages of a novel (maximum yikes).